Ghosts from the Past
by Kurt
Summary: Ch 18 up, which means that this story and the Susana series are COMPLETE. Susana Alvarez Lecter and Lisa Starling are back. Lisa is hunting for a serial killer, and two men tangle themselves into the web of circumstance....
1. Beginnings

                _Author's note:  Yes, I know, working on three fics at once, not recommended. Now I'm going to be in Las Vegas for a week, and figured this might hold people off for a bit until I left. I'd been working on this on and off.  I had planned to end the Susana series with 'Those Who Come After'.  A few Susana fans protested this, of course, and it set me to thinking:  I had neglected to provide my characters with much in the relationship department, and that didn't strike me as a good way to end the series. So here we are, with the hunt for a serial killer bringing two sets of people together…_

The small apartment was full of police officers.  Most of them were accustomed to the horrible things that people do to each other.  Years served on the Boston Police Department generally jade those who serve there.  But even the most jaded cop on the beat couldn't help but be a bit put off by the body on the bed.  The face was barely recognizable as human.  From hairline to chin were nothing but bruises and discolorations.  The nose was smashed flat.  The bone of the forehead was broken.  The mouth was a bloody gash of shattered teeth.  It held very little resemblance to the attractive woman that the body had housed in life.   The naked body, too, was severely beaten.   Bruises and burn marks ranged up and down the corpse's limbs and trunk.   The crime committed against this woman was one of insensate rage, a fury so deep and angry it barely seemed to be human.  

                What was worse was that it was not the first.  Mariana Medina was the fifth such woman to meet her end in such a manner.  Four other women had been found in crime scenes not unlike this one; the same bruises, the same horrible injury. Some literary-minded reporter had dubbed the criminal the Bludgeon Man, a nickname most horrifically apt for his crimes. The Boston Police Department was doing everything it could to find the killer and bring him to justice.  Sometimes, that meant knowing when you need help, and so the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit was now consulting on the case.  

                Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan, the point man on the Bludgeon Man investigation, entered the bedroom and sighed.  

                "What a waste," he said, observing the corpse on the bed before him.  "What a freakin' waste.  Well, at least we got one for the FBI to see.  Is forensics doing their bit?"  

                "Yessir," one of the homicide detectives said.  "And I called a car for the FBI agent already, she's en route.  They're setting up a task force here in Boston.  Must mean they're serious on catching the guy."  

                Sullivan nodded.  "Good," he said.  "Do we know how the perp entered the apartment?"  

                "No sign of forced entry.  He either picked the lock good or she let him in."  

                _Same as the other cases, Sullivan thought.  _

                "OK, people, what do we have?"  

                The forensics tech examining the body sighed.  "We have a woman who looked like Mike Tyson went after her with a baseball bat and a cheese grater."  

                "FBI's on its way up," the radio announced.  Sullivan sighed.   

                "Okay," he radioed back.  

                The FBI had sent out some pretty heavy hitters, Detective Sullivan thought.  There was a whole damn task force of them.  A few Boston cops didn't like it; he'd heard the Boston PD task force objecting to it.  They wanted to catch the crook themselves.  Sullivan thought it was great.  Anything that helped put this guy away had to be good.   The Bludgeon Man was hot, very hot, and he was killing the people Jason Sullivan had sworn to protect.  

                He stuck his thumbs in his belt and sighed, watching his people do their jobs.  They searched for clues; they examined the corpse. Behind him was the rattle of the coroner's gurney, preparing to gather up the corpse and take her back to the morgue, where the pathologists would carefully catalogue the atrocities that had been performed on Mariana Medina.  _Such a damn shame, he thought, __somebody cut down in the prime of their life by this psycho.     He knew already the one crime that wouldn't be there – no signs of intercourse.  The Bludgeon Man didn't seem to have a taste for it.  _

                A blonde woman in a blue pants suit entered the already crowded room and looked around.  Her eyes met Sullivan's.  He'd met her at the first joint meeting between the two task forces.  But dammit, he'd forgotten her name.  Something that made him think of serial killers, though.   He walked up to her and stuck out his big, blocky hand.  

                "Hi," he said.  "Detective Sergeant Sullivan.  I'm heading up the BPD's task force."  

                The blonde woman's eyes flicked up to his.  He had about a foot of height on her.  She offered her own hand calmly.  

                "Deputy Chief Lisa Starling," she said.  "Heading up the FBI's task force.  We met in the meeting a few days ago."  

                "Yeah," Sullivan grunted.  "We got forensics going over the scene now.  I'll make sure you guys get full copies of everything.  Looks like Bludgeon Man's M.O.  Damn shame, isn't it?"  

                Lisa Starling surveyed the scene of frozen carnage.  "Yep," she said.   "Damn shame.  And this is definitely his work.   But we'll get him."  

                …

                Death Row was quiet.  

                Here at the Clinton Correctional Facility, where New York State's death row was located, it was often quiet.  The condemned inmates of the block never saw each other.  The cells were in perfect seclusion.  Half the cell was devoted to living space, if you wanted to call it that.  Each cell had a bunk, a desk and chair, a toilet, and a sink.  Prisoners were allowed to have radios, but had to use them with headphones.  Meals were eaten in the cells.  Once a day, a guard in a remote picket would electronically open the door that would allow each man into the small vault that adjoined each prisoner's living area.  It contained a shower stall and a visiting booth.   It served to keep each man locked down to a minimum of living space and movement.  

                Professor Thomas Creed, a former professor of philosophy at Cornell, sat at his desk calmly reading a letter.  He was an oddity among the world of the condemned.  Most of his compatriots on the Unit for Condemned Persons were uneducated; only a few others had a high school diploma, and no one else had so much as a bachelor's degree.  Professor Creed possessed a PhD, as was expected for a full professor at an Ivy League school.  It was only once his hobbies had come to light that he'd been brought to justice and then brought here.    

                He finished reading the letter that he'd received calmly.  It was in English, as the rules did not permit him to receive letters written in other languages.  Only Professor Creed's lawyers were entitled to speak with him in confidence.  Any other correspondence had to go under the watchful eye of Professor Creed's guards.    

                For a man in Professor Creed's situation of blank concrete walls and sensory deprivation, the letter itself was a joy.  The paper was fine and creamy.  He could bring it up to his nose and inhale the pleasant aroma of top-quality paper.  So many people denied themselves the pleasures of fine paper; a ream of whatever was cheapest at Staples would do. The tactile pleasures of the vellum were a welcome treat for the professor.   But better yet, the writer of the letter had scented it for him with her perfume.  Professor Creed held the end she had sprayed it with and closed his eyes.    A pleasant, feminine aroma, a tiny scrap of femininity and beauty smuggled here into his blank world of other men, concrete walls, and isolation.  

                Had anyone looked at the letter – and the guards ensuring he remained captive here had – they would have seen nothing at all that was abnormal.  The return address was from Paris.  That raised no eyebrows on the prison staff at all.  Europeans commonly disapprove of the death penalty, and it is common for American death-row inmates to receive mail from European women.  Some even marry them.  

                Professor Creed read the letter twice.  The first time, he examined the text on the paper.  It was quite straightforward.  The writer of the letter had deposited money in his prison account, so that he would be able to afford the expense of postage to Europe.  She thought of him often and hoped he was well.  She told him of the latest anti-death-penalty demonstrations and gestures taking place in Europe.  Privately, Professor Creed thought this a foolish, empty, feel-good gesture:  the American states that practiced the death penalty did not care a flying fig what European countries thought, regarding the process of execution as an internal matter in which foreign opinion held no sway.  

                The second time he read it, he employed the method they had agreed upon and extracted the true meaning of the letter.  _That made his eyebrows rise a bit; it was clever and daring.  But he expected no less.  Professor Creed took out a sheet of his own paper and carefully set about penning a reply.  It took him a great deal of time, and the guards watching him over the camera wondered what he was doing.   They attempted to zoom in, but were unable to read the text.  They did manage to see Professor Creed's dark black hair, made even darker against his pale skin.  The professor had always been quite pale, and his restricted environment had enhanced this pallor.  Seeing him sit at his desk, with those fine, aristocratic features prominent in the camera, one might think he was still the professor of philosophy he had been until the FBI unmasked him. _

                Professor Creed's crimes were quite well known.   His unorthodox means of dealing with students who did not meet his standards in one way or another were standard _Tattler fodder.  Unlike most serial killers, he was educated and had refined tastes, very few of which he'd been able to see to while in prison.  There were those who had compared him to Dr. Hannibal Lecter many years before.  To do this was not completely incorrect, although the professor had noted in a few discussions via mail that he, unlike the murderous psychiatrist, had never indulged in the peccadillo of cannibalism, nor had he ever obsessed over an agent of the FBI.  He had never met the task force who caught him, except when they testified at his trial.   And while Dr. Lecter had been found insane, the professor had not.  Professor Creed had also wryly noted that the last years of Hannibal Lecter's life had been spent as a rich man in upper crust Buenos Aires, a family man with a wife and daughter.  He had died with his wife and daughter at his side after a full and rich life. Here, in this small town's prison fifteen miles from the Canadian border, the professor noted, it was far more likely that he would come to an end on a steel gurney, with two needles in his arms.  Currently, the state was battling for this right in the appellate courts, as they had for the past five years.  _

                Finally, his reply was finished.  Professor Creed took out a few American-flag stamps and attached them to the envelope.  He addressed it to Marie Lavelle, at the appropriate address in Paris.  He left it for the guards, who took it, made a copy of it, and sent it on its way.  And there we shall leave the professor, sitting calmly in his cell with a feeling of calmness and pleasantness in his gut that he would not explain to us if we asked him.    Instead, we shall follow the small white envelope that he has sent in reply.  

                From the prison, it was driven to the main post office for the area.  After that, it was flown to New York City to depart the country with other international mail.   Much of the international mail is flown on the very same planes that take people across the Atlantic Ocean, and Professor Creed's letter was bundled into a canvas sack along with many others and loaded into the belly of a 767.  Once on the tarmac at Paris, it was offloaded and introduced into the French postal system.  

                It finally made its way to a private French business that provided mailboxes to those who did not want to use the mail with their own addresses.  The business was quite aboveboard, no more dangerous or sly than the Mailboxes Etc chain in the United States.  In fact, most of the clients of the business were professionals who sought to establish a private business address without much capital.   There, it was put into the box belonging to Marie Lavelle and waited patiently.  

                The woman known to the business as Marie Lavelle entered a few nights later, on her way home from the private clinic that she worked in and now partially owned.  She greeted the employees with a simple _bonjour, opened the box, and took the letter.  The staff found nothing untoward or suspicious about Dr. Lavelle; they knew she was a doctor and was often busy.  But Marie Lavelle was not her name and never had been.  _

                The woman headed out to her Jaguar parked on the street with the letter in hand.  She was well dressed, her clothing beautifully cut.  This was hardly uncommon for a wealthy woman living in Paris; the couture of Paris outshines all others.  She did not open the letter yet.  Instead, she simply checked her reflection in the mirror, for the woman the business knows as Dr. Lavelle has always been slightly obsessed with her appearance.   The doctor has maroon eyes that shift easily from the mirror to the car's instruments.  

                Home is a palatial estate in _the neighborhood for the wealthy.  The Jaguar's taillights disappear into the driveway and vanish into the garage.  The doctor alights from the car to discover her butler there, properly attired and deferential.  He informs her courteously that the young master is waiting with his nanny, and the doctor leaves her envelope from Clinton Correctional Facility with the mail that the butler has already brought in.  If we were to examine this mail, we might notice in the fraction of a second before the butler gathered it away from us that the doctor's name is Dr. Suzanne Arsenault Lesage.  This is only true depending on one's viewpoint.  The doctor is indeed known by that name here in France, but it is not the name she was born with nor the name she thinks of herself as having.  _

                To the aforementioned young master, of course, she is _maman, and this is what the four-year-old shouts as he runs towards her.  Guillaume Lesage grasps his mother firmly as she squats for a hug.  His nanny, smiling gently, fills the doctor in on how the young master spent his day.  But he is delighted to have his __maman home, and he tells her this excitedly.  She retires to the TV room with her son while the servants prepare dinner.   Television was not something she had much truck with growing up, but she denies her son no more than her father in turn ever denied her.  _

                Susana Alvarez Lecter, the only woman on the FBI's Ten Most-Wanted List, and the woman who has murdered more FBI agents than any other, sits down with her son to watch American television programs brought to her by her satellite dish.  The day has gone well.  It would surprise those who seek her in the FBI that Susana _saves lives in her new life, but she does.  She is a surgeon by trade, and a good one.  Others who have studied further into the Lecter bloodline might take notice in this: Dr. Hannibal Lecter, while brutally murdering some of his more annoying or hopeless patients, helped a great many more than the nine he killed.  In his second life, married to Clarice Starling and father to Susana, he trained new doctors at the University of Buenos Aires's medical school  -- trained them sternly and demandingly, but not without compassion or understanding where it was warranted.  _

                Guillaume is happily watching the adventures of an animated blue puppy and a man in a green-striped shirt as Susana asks her butler to bring in the day's mail.  He does not need the subtitles; English to him is as native a language as French, as is Spanish for that matter.  Susana Alvarez Lecter shifts on her couch and tears open the letter.  As Professor Creed did in his cell, she reads it once, then again to extract its actual meaning.  

                "_Maman," Guillaume asks, "is that another letter from your friend?"  _

                "_Oui, Guillaume, it is," she replies.  _

                "Why doesn't he come and visit us?" the boy asks.  "He could come and see us.  It would be nice."  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter smiles wryly.  _Well, Guillaume, you see, there's a lot of concrete walls and bars and people with guns who don't want him to come visit, is what comes to mind.  But she spares Guillaume the gory details just as she was spared the truth about her origins until she was much older.  _

                "_Maman is working on it, Guillaume," she says.  "He will, soon."  _


	2. Lunch and Letters

                _Author's note:  Back from Las Vegas. Didja miss me?  Here we go, some exposition and a letter. _

The restaurant was calm and quiet.  It was a simple place.  Clean but not fancy.  The tables were small and the chairs stackable, the specials of the day written up on a board in purple marker,  but the food was good.   A cop's restaurant.  It was quite popular with the Boston cops who worked in this area.  And at a far back table, against the wall, Lisa Starling and Jason Sullivan were having a lunch meeting.  

                Seeing them, one might have thought they made a cute couple.  He was tall and muscular, but clean-cut.   She was shorter, blonde, and had pleasing delicate features.  This impression would have been dashed once the subject of their conversation came to light.  

                "So the Bludgeon Man's been a busy boy," Lisa Starling said calmly, examining a picture of his third and fourth victims.   She did not flinch.  Lisa Starling was an experienced veteran of Behavioral Sciences and knew well what depredations and atrocities that serial killers can inflict on their victims.  But the Bludgeon Man was bad.  

                "Yeah, he is," Detective Sullivan said.  "Real bad.  Real sophisticated, too.   He either picked the lock or got them to let him in.  That's what I think."  

                Lisa nodded.  "Yes and no," she said absently.  "_That _isn't as sophisticated as you might think.  Just knock on the door and say you're either Domino's, the police, or building maintenance, most people will open the door for you then.  But I do agree that this is definitely a sophisticated criminal.  He's done this before.  He's very good. Wouldn't surprise me if we've seen him before…except,…,"  

                "Except what?"  

                Lisa folded the file and looked up to gather her thoughts.  "The amount of violence on the victims suggests that this guy may be mentally ill.  I mean…he might be sane, but he's _angry.  _Furiously angry about…something."  

                "Well, yeah, that goes without saying, Agent Starling," the detective said, pronouncing it _Stah-ling _and making her grin.  "Is that all you profilers do?"  

                "Nope," she said.  "But from that, I can tell you that he probably lives alone.  Guy like this is gonna be hard to live with.  He'll be noticeable.  He'll want to live alone.  He's also pretty confident, pretty experienced at what he does.  Whether he's picking the lock or talking his way in, he knows what he's doing.  He's in his late twenties, maybe, early thirties.   White male.  Serial killers almost exclusively hunt in their own ethnic groups.  I wouldn't be surprised if our boy's been in prison before.  Someone capable of this level of violence and this level of planning would've come to the attention of law enforcement."  

                _That _made her think of her cousin, capable of great violence and of that level of planning.  The thought made her tremble briefly and feel ashamed.  Susana Alvarez Lecter had murdered her friends and co-workers.  She was arguably the most-wanted cop-killer on the face of the planet.  And Lisa Starling, who had sworn to enforce the law, knew everything.  She knew that Susana was living in Paris, working as a surgeon, and enjoying a wealthy life with her son and all the benefits her vast fortune could provide.  

                But Susana also held a very powerful noose around Lisa's neck preventing her from saying anything.  Four years ago, Lisa had tracked her cousin to Argentina, where she had hidden away with an American serial killer she had met during her brief incarceration.  Lisa had shot and killed him in self-defense.  She herself had been arrested and charged with murder.  But Susana had seen to that too.  The devil's bargain she had struck with Lisa had been simple.  She now had the contents of the FBI's file, which Lisa had given her.  In return, the evidence against Lisa Starling had mysteriously vanished.  The charges had been dropped, and Lisa had returned to her life.  The terms of the bargain after that had been simple:  so long as Susana remained free, so would Lisa.  If Susana was ever arrested, the evidence against Lisa would come to light, and the murder charges against her would be filed again.

                At the time, Lisa had little choice.  Susana had been free already, and refusing the deal would have done nothing but damn Lisa to a life sentence in a foreign jail.  But ever since then, every time the phone rang, every time someone rushed into her office, Lisa would flinch for a moment, dreading the words _We just caught Susana Alvarez.  _  Because shortly after that, Lisa knew, would come another set of words:  _Lisa, I don't get it…we just got a request from the Argentine government for your arrest and extradition…I'm sorry, but you have to come with us.  _

                But Susana had settled down into a quiet but affluent life with her son.  Even had there not been the weight of a foreign prison sentence over Lisa's head, getting her out of France would have been very hard anyway.  The charges against her carried the death penalty, and Susana was rich enough to fight extradition for years.  And France would simply refuse to extradite her back so long as her life hung in the balance.  An unspoken understanding had come into existence between the killer and the FBI agent; so long as Susana stayed on her side of the Atlantic, Lisa was willing to let her stay there.  Her life was worth Susana's.  

                But that didn't mean she didn't feel guilty about it.  Every time she passed the plaque in Behavioral Sciences listing the names of the Behavioral Sciences personnel Susana had killed in order to stay free, every time her case was brought up, Lisa found herself feeling horribly guilty and ashamed.  It was true that the FBI had hidden away evidence from Susana's attorneys.  It was true that they had accused her of murders she had not actually committed.  But the sheer, inescapable fact remained.  Lisa Starling knew where she was and said nothing.  

                But now she had a new wolf to hunt.  One whose capture would not result in her own damnation.  So Lisa took a deep breath and dismissed the thought of her cousin from her mind.  Better to concentrate on the Bludgeon Man.  She perused the files and continued.  

                "So he's got a record," the detective mused.  

                "I think so, yes. We'll have to check other cities, see if there are similar crimes we can find."  

                "But he's probably from Boston, don't you think?  I read somewhere that serial killers usually pick places they feel comfortable."  

                "He could have," Lisa admitted.  "You'd have seen him before, then."  She stared up at the ceiling and thought.   "I know I don't remember anything like this when I was here--," 

                "You were in Boston?"  Detective Sullivan grinned.   "When?" 

                "Years ago," Lisa said, grinning herself.  "When I first started out in the FBI.  I was part of a task force in DC, then they sent me to the Boston field office.  Did four years there, then went back to Behavioral Sciences."  

                "You don't talk like you lived here," the detective noted.  

                "I'm from West Virginia," Lisa said.  She cleared her throat and grinned.  "But I used to be able to do it."  The drawl dropped out of her voice suddenly.   "You know, get the kah kis, get in the kah, bang a left, and go down to the Stah Mahket.  You get the ideer." 

                Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan threw back his head and laughed.  "Not too bad!"  

                "Wicked good, actually," Lisa said, and grinned herself. 

                "So you've got some familiarity with the area.  What do _you_ think?"  

                "Well," Lisa allowed, "there weren't any serial killers active when I was here.  I'm going to work up my profile, see what I can get you in order to help you search."  

                Sullivan nodded.  "That'll work," he said.  "Hey, look, if any of my guys gives you Feds lip, let me know.  I want this guy caught, not slipping out because of some stupid territorial thing."  

                Lisa nodded.  "So far everyone's been fine," she said calmly.  

                "So you've been doing this a while," he said, more of a question than a statement.  

                "Hunting them, yeah.  This is my first time in charge, though."  

                "Same here," he said.  "Just made Lieutenant couple months ago."  

                "Congratulations," Lisa said, smiling.  

                "Yeah, thanks," he said.  "Hey, listen, I thought I read about this in the paper….sorry if this is a weak point or something, but aren't you related to that Susana Lecter who blew up those cops down in DC?"

                Lisa sighed.  Somehow, it always came to this:  she was known best not as the Deputy Chief of Behavioral Sciences but as the cousin of Susana Alvarez Lecter.  Or Susanner Lectah, as he had pronounced it.  

                "I am Clarice Starling's cousin," she said calmly.  "Susana Alvarez is her daughter.  She is my cousin once removed, so yes.  But Clarice was a lot older than I am.  Susana and I are the same age."  

                "Didn't mean to offend," he said apologetically.  

                "No," Lisa sighed, "it's all right.  She's…well…she's Hannibal Lecter's daughter."  

                "They never found her after she kilt all those FBI agents," he said.  

                Lisa took a deep breath.  "No," she said finally.  "She had fled down to Argentina and disappeared.  No one has seen her since."  

                "Ever think about that? If she might come to getcha?"  

                _Come to get me?  No, I don't think so.  Think about her?  Every day, _Lisa Starling thought.  

                "I doubt it," she said calmly.  "She's wanted for twenty-five counts of murder.  No one's heard anything at all from her in four years.  Wherever she is, she's going to be very quiet, very low-key.  Somewhere where she can fight extradition if she ever does get caught.   She won't pop her head up stupidly."  _God, I hope so, _she added mentally.  

                "She was around here for a bit, wasn't she?"  

                "Yes," Lisa admitted.  "She went to Harvard Medical School and then did her residency at Massachusetts General Hospital."  

                Detective Sullivan shivered.  "Freaky," he said.  "She didn't kill anyone when she was here, though."  

                "No," Lisa affirmed.  "If you're interested, there are two other doctors who became killers.  One was her father, Hannibal Lecter.  The other was Michael Swango.  But Susana was more like her father than Swango – Swango was a lousy doctor.  Both the Lecters were very good at their jobs.  Her ratings were always good.  The death rate of her patients was actually lower than the norm.  She wasn't killing her patients.  Or anyone else that we know of – she usually liked to make it clear when it was her."  

                "Still don't like the idea of killer doctors in my town," Sullivan commented.

                Her cell phone buzzed and she grabbed it, interrupting the conversation.  

                "Chief Starling?"  

                Lisa took a moment, as she occasionally did, to enjoy the sound of the words _Chief Starling.  _  

                "Yes, I'm here," she said. 

"Agent Krause here.  We just got a letter you might want to see when you get back."  

                She blushed and grinned at Detective Sullivan, who simply shrugged.  "Go ahead, take your call."

                "What is it?"  

                "Someone's offering us help with the investigation," Agent Krause told her.  

                "Okay," Lisa said doubtfully, wondering why this prompted a call, let alone the alarm in Agent Krause's voice.   "Well…odds are they're just a helpful crank, that's what they usually are.  Get a statement."  

                "He insisted on talking only with you," Agent Krause said.  

                 "Why?"  

                "He didn't say," the younger agent admitted.  

                Lisa sighed.   "Then bring him in, and I'll talk to him when I have time,"  

                "I don't think I can do that, Chief Starling.  It's Professor Thomas Creed.  He's on New York's death row."  

                Lisa took in a sharp breath.  "The Death Professor," she said.  

                "The same.  He wrote a letter to the Bludgeon Man task force stating that he has information that would be helpful in capturing the Bludgeon Man."  

                Lisa Starling sat there wondering how in hell a man incarcerated on a secure unit another state away would have any knowledge of a currently active serial killer.  But, after all, Susana Alvarez Lecter would never have been born had another man, long ago, in a secure psychiatric hospital not had information about another then-active serial killer.  

                "I see," she said.  "Well, send someone out to get a statement."  

                "Don't shoot the messenger, Chief Starling, but he stated in the letter that he would only speak with you."  

                Lisa Starling let out a hiss.  She had worked on the task force that had unmasked Professor Creed six years ago.  He couldn't want revenge on _her, _though; she had just been profiling on that case.  It had been before she was deputy chief, just a grunt agent.    Quincy had been the one leading the task force.  It was possible that Professor Creed had gotten her name, somehow.   Maybe he wanted revenge.  Professor Creed could have no more taken revenge on Don Quincy than he could have taken revenge on Jack Crawford, who'd run the department years before.  Susana Alvarez Lecter had taken that opportunity away from the professor, decapitating Quincy rather gorily two years after the professor had been tried and sentenced to death.  

                Thomas Creed had been a professor of philosophy at Cornell.  Very bright, very cultured, and very charming.  He was quite demanding towards his students.  Students who did not meet his standards in one way or another had been found around the area, in various states of dismemberment and torment.  His victims were mostly male, but not exclusively so:  two women had met their deaths at his hands.  

                But Creed had been on death row for five or six years.   He had been off the prison grounds only for court visits.  What information could he possibly have?  

                "I'll check it out," she said.  "It's probably nothing.  Creed is probably just trying to jerk us around."  

                "Okay," Agent Krause told her, and that ended the call. 

                "What was that about?" Detective Sullivan asked.  

                "Oh, just the office.  They have a letter they want me to look at."  

                "From Professor Creed?  Now _there's _a freakin' nutbag."  

                Lisa nodded slowly.  "That's…not something to announce to the public," she said slowly.  

                "Understood."   He rose.  "Well, I gotta head back to the station myself.  You know your way back, right?  I can have someone drive you."  

                "I have a car," Lisa assured him.   

                "Thanks for meeting with me.  Appreciate your time."  

                "Of course, Detective," Lisa Starling said.  

                Back at the temporary offices that Boston PD had arranged for the FBI task force, Lisa Starling walked in and asked for the letter.  What she got was a copy; the original was currently at Logan Airport where it would be flown down to the FBI's crime labs in Washington.  She examined the letter carefully.   Professor Creed's handwriting was quite neat and tidy.    Lisa's eyes scanned the letter carefully.  

_                Dear Agent Starling,  _

_                When last we met, you were part of the task force sworn to bring me to justice.  I assure you that this letter is neither a puerile swearing of revenge, nor do I bear you enmity for having discovered my admittedly novel means of improving the student body at my former place of employment.  It was your task in life to see that such things don't happen.  _

_                Rather, I think that perhaps I might be able to offer you some assistance.  Currently, I see from the papers and the news that Boston has become the hunting grounds of a killer – a very **angry **one, one who bludgeons his victims so badly that they are barely recognizable.  And yes, Agent Starling, the papers have said the victims were badly beaten, but no, they do not indicate the depths of the depravity to which this killer subjects his victims.  They're not recognizable as human, are they?  Beaten quite severely, indicative of a deep, deep rage.  _

_                Come by and see me if you like – Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. I believe you'll be able to find your way here.  I must emphasize that this invitation is personal, Agent Starling – to you and you alone.  If you should send an underling, I will not speak with them   I should refer to you as Chief Starling, should I not?  My apologies.  But perhaps it might be fun to chat._

_See you soon, _

_             Thomas L. Creed, PhD_

"There's the letter," one of her agents noted.  "Whatcha gonna do with it?"  

                "He's probably just jerking us around," Lisa said.  "Quincy's not around to do it, so I'm elected."  

                Then she sighed.  Perhaps this was part of his appeals, to convince a judge he deserved to be commuted to life.  Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to jerk her around, make a few comments and get under her skin.  Maybe this was just for his idle amusement – the guy didn't have a whole lot to do.  

                The damnable thing was that he was _right.  _The papers had reported that the victims had been beaten, but they had refrained from pointing out just _how _beaten they had been.  The Bludgeon Man had knocked the crap out of his victims, to put it bluntly.  How the hell a man who'd been held in maximum security for the past six years knew that was beyond the ken of Lisa Starling.  But he did.   

                And what if…just what if he was on the level?  What if he had something that might help put away the Bludgeon Man?  Going and having a look-see couldn't possibly hurt.  It might save the life of the Bludgeon Man's next victim.  That was a chance Lisa Starling could not take.


	3. Interview with a Killer

                The dull gray walls of Clinton Correctional Facility loomed large over the small town of Dannemora.   It was a small town, just barely south of the Canadian border, nestled in the Adirondack mountains. The main industry in the town was the prison.  Most people in Dannemora worked for the prison in one way or another.  

                Lisa Starling got out of her rental car and surveyed the prison with some trepidation.  She'd flown from Boston to Burlington, Vermont, which struck her as odd.  It was closer than Albany, though.  The gate guard had waved her in after checking her ID and verifying that she was indeed an agent of the FBI here to interrogate a prisoner.  

                The sight of the fences and barbed wire and barred windows reminded her unpleasantly of her own brief confinement in Argentina.  She shuddered.  _Forget about that, she told herself.  __You're a deputy chief of the FBI now, you're not a prisoner.   She glanced over at the simple gray Buick she had rented in Burlington as if it might ensure to her that she was indeed a federal agent.  If that didn't work, the weight of the Glock against her hip could have told her that.  _

                Lisa entered the door marked for visitors and checked in with a guard sitting behind a desk.  He examined her ID calmly and asked for her weapon.  She'd wondered if she ought to bring it and finally had decided she felt better with it, even though flying with a gun was a major pain.  The guard didn't seem to think the gun was any big deal, fortunately.  Visits from law enforcement officers were hardly uncommon at the prison.

                He gave her a form to fill out, advising her among other things that if she was taken hostage, the prison could not guarantee her life or her safety.  It also advised her that in order to be allowed to visit, she had to agree to keep her voice at a conversational level and could not engage in sexual behavior during the visit.  How _charming.  Lisa wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean and decided she didn't want to know. __ She signed the agreement and handed it back to him.  She was feeling vaguely uncomfortable in her blue suit.    _

                "I'll call the shift commander for UCP down," he said.  "You can have a seat over there, Agent Starling.  There's coffee over there if you'd like."  

                Lisa got herself a cup and found herself feeling strangely exposed.  She only wore skirt suits to the office if she had a meeting with the bigwigs.  The skirt was perfectly modest, falling to just above the knee, but she found herself suddenly wishing she'd worn pants.  She'd thought the professor might approve, and be more likely to give her the information he had about the Bludgeon Man.  Then again, she had to admit, there was something absolutely insane about dressing to impress Professor Creed.  The man had once disagreed with a student who had written a paper analyzing the legitimacy of slave rebellions from the viewpoints of a few different philosophers.  Professor Creed had disagreed with it, and they had found the student re-enacting an old slave punishment from Suriname.  Specifically, the young man had been found hung from a makeshift gallows near one of the Finger Lakes.  Hung, not hanged.   The victim had been suspended not from a noose around his neck , but from a steel hook passed through one of his ribs.  He'd been left alive to suffer for a few days, but once they'd found him he was quite dead.   Somehow, Lisa Starling did not think a man who could do something like that to someone was going to be particularly impressed by a skirt suit and her new pumps.  

                A gray-uniformed man with captain's bars pinned to his epaulets came down to see her.  Clocksprings of gray hair curled out from under his dark cap.  He spoke with what seemed like a permanent mumble.  

                "Agent Starling?  I'm Captain Macon.  Pleased to meet you."

                "Hi," Lisa said nervously.  "Yes, we spoke on the phone."  

                "Mm-hmm," he said.  "Well, I just want to go over a couple of things with you before you talk with Professor Creed."  

                "Okay," Lisa said.   

                "First thing, don't worry too much.  The UCP is locked down pretty much 'round the clock.  There may be a few inmates moving back and forth to the exercise yard, but that's about it.  There's a visiting room in the back of each cell, and that's where you'll meet him.  You won't be disturbed."  

                Lisa nodded.  

                 "Your visit with Professor Creed will be behind a Plexiglass barrier.  You'll have a phone to talk to him through.  At no time will there be any physical contact of any kind."  

                "I understand," Lisa said.  

                "Also, there's audio surveillance in the cell at all times.  You're not his attorney, so a guard will be listening in.  Figured I'd tell you now.  But in the unlikely event anything happens, just speak up and a guard will be in."  

                "Gotcha," Lisa said.  

                 "If you need to pass him some documents, there's a locked slot in the visiting booth.  I'll have a guard handy to lock and unlock it for you.  We don't just leave it unlocked – you gotta ask every time.  It's a pain, but we like our security."  

                "I don't think that'll be necessary," Lisa said.  "But thanks, if I need to give him something I'll ask."  

                "If you do, make sure it's paper only.  No staples, no paperclips, no pens.  He's got his own ink pens."  

                "Yes, sir," Lisa said archly.  Her leg was trembling. 

                "And don't worry.  Professor Creed's been a perfect gentleman since he got here.  We've had no trouble with him.  Most of the men on death row mind their manners.  Surprising but true.  They're all working on their appeals and they know that acting out here is gonna hurt them."  

                He gestured for Lisa to follow him and headed up the stairs.  At the door to the stairwell, he stopped to unlock the door and held it politely for her.  She grinned her thanks, feeling slightly more nervous about all this.  

                It was a lot noisier than she would have thought.  The crashing of iron doors and barred gates happened constantly.  It got under her skin and made her feel jumpy.  A few inmates looked hungrily at her and she wished she had her gun with her.   None of them said anything.  

                The floor on which condemned inmates were isolated was quieter.  The condemned were kept in their single cells and never permitted to congregate.  When she came through, she could see them all at their cell doors, watching her carefully through the barred windows.  That creeped her out.  It occurred to her that she was probably the only woman they had seen in God only knew how long.  They didn't seem to be violent, or angry.  There was nothing threatening in their gaze.  For some reason that was worse, she thought; the men plastered up against the windows seemed more pathetic than threatening.  As if they were poodles somehow mistaken for lions.

                Then they brought her around to the visiting booth area.  This area was all electronically controlled.  An unseen guard pressed a switch somewhere and the door to the darkened visiting booth opened.  Inside was a simple wooden chair and a telephone with no dial attached to the wall.  In front of it was a large sheet of Plexiglass.  Beyond the Plexiglass was a narrow alley-like room that contained a similar chair and phone for the prisoner.  A door in the center of the room allowed him access from his cell.  On the other side was an open shower stall.  It occurred to Lisa that this was as close as any human being got to Professor Thomas Creed.  The door on the side opened into his cell. Just beyond that door was where he lived and breathed.  Where he was right now.  Beyond that door waited a killer.  Not just a killer; a monster.  There was no explanation for his crimes.  No reason for him to have done what he had.  But, just as Hannibal Lecter had been termed a monster, so it was true with Thomas Creed.  

                Lisa Starling tensed and put her briefcase down on the floor of the visiting booth.  The lights came up in the small visiting and bathing area.  Yes, she thought, this made sense, to incarcerate this monster where no human being needed to contact him, where his movements could be controlled electronically and safely.  What if he lunged against the Plexiglass?  Would it hold?  Professor Creed was strong, inhumanly so. Lisa knew this because she had seen his crime scene photos.  He had decapitated a few of his victims; in one case he had managed to do so with his bare hands.  

                The door opened.  Lisa tensed.  From the living area of Professor Creed's cell came the sound of footsteps.  It was a faint _wsht-wsht sound.  Professor Creed commonly preferred to wear his shower shoes in his cell.  A human form appeared in the doorway and turned.  Lisa's fingers dug into her palms.  _

                Professor Thomas Creed is a tall man. Six foot two inches according to his prison records.   He is actually quite slender, but in looking at him there is no sense that this man is gaunt or weak.  He fills out his prison uniform nicely.  Were you to simply look at his arms, you might notice that they were indeed slender.  But the man himself seems to radiate a strange sort of power.  

                Professor Creed's hair is jet black and curly.  During his freedom, he kept it neatly cut and short.  Here, in prison, it has approached just to the barest edge of being unruly.  Haircuts are once a month on Death Row and consist of a guard armed with electric clippers.  The professor does not care for the military look.  

                Easily the most frightening part of Professor Creed are his eyes.  He does not, as you might think, possess maroon eyes, as the man the _Tattler insists on ceaselessly comparing him with once had.  Instead, Professor Creed's eyes are an extremely pale blue.  They are of one color throughout the entire iris; there is neither shade nor highlight.  His pupils are inky black dots dropped in the middle of the blue.   Upon looking at the professor it is easy to mistakenly conclude he might be under the influence of drugs;  in normal light his pupils are mere pinpoints.  Their effect is frightening.   More than a few female undergraduates signed up for Professor Creed's Philosophy 101 class, believing him handsome, but when those spooky pale blue eyes fixed on them and his soft voice asked a question, they usually found themselves trembling.  His eyes seem only partially human, as if Professor Creed was created by an alien intelligence that did not pay attention to the details.  They are a void into which everything he sees falls.   _

                Staring at Lisa Starling with those eyes, a slight smile crossed Professor Creed's face.  He sat down on the opposite side of the barrier majestically, taking his time.  He took the telephone on his side calmly and held it to his ear.  

                "Agent Starling," he said.  His voice was pleasant and soft, barely above a whisper.  It was calming and frightening at the same time.  Here, in this place of clashing iron gates, buzzing speakers, and screaming inmates and guards, Professor Creed preferred to speak softly.  Not even the harsh amplification of the phones changed that.  "I trust your trip up was…pleasant?"  

                "Yes," Lisa Starling said, trying to avoid looking nervous.  

                "Did you fly into Burlington?  That's usually how people come when they fly."  

                "Yes, I did," she said, "and rented a car."  

                "Ah," Professor Creed said.  "I also trust the telephones are working properly?  They were repaired just the other week. The result of a class-action suit against the DOC.  We were forced to yell in conversations with our attorneys.  A violation of attorney-client privilege, you know."  

                "They're working fine," Lisa said.  "Now, Professor Creed, you told me you might have some information about the Bludgeon Man."  

                Professor Creed smiled.  A flash of humor appeared in his eyes and vanished almost immediately.   

                "Ah, yes, the Bludgeon Man," he said.  "Do you know the Bludgeon Man, the Bludgeon Man, the Bludgeon Man?  A very angry boy is he."  

                "That's something you could have figured out from the papers," Lisa Starling observed.  "Professor Creed, let me save you some time here.  I am not some naïve little trainee.  I am the Deputy Chief of Behavioral Sciences, I have a master's degree in psychology, and ten years of experience in the FBI.  If you're going to jerk me around, I can just get on a plane and head back to Boston."  

                "Jerk you around?  Please, Agent Starling.  I rarely get the chance to speak with people other than guards.  All I'm asking is a little civility and conversation.  And some understanding for my, perhaps, forgetting social graces.   A master's degree? From where, may I ask?" 

                Lisa Starling stared at the killer for several moments silently.  

                "UVA," she said suddenly.  

                "A fine school.  I had a colleague in graduate school who taught there."  Professor Creed pronounced the word _grad-you-it.  _

                "Thank you," Lisa said.  

                "The Bludgeon Man," Professor Creed said calmly, his voice still frustratingly low, "is a woman-killer.  Women are his exclusive victims."  

                "Well, yes," Lisa said, wondering where the hell this was going.  "Most serial killers stick exclusively to one gender of victims."  

                "_I did not," the professor observed.  _

                "Well, no," Lisa Starling said, and leaned forward.  It was time to show him that she knew her stuff, too.  "Seven of your victims were men.  But you killed two women, Professor Creed.  Angela Curran and Megan Stanwick.  You chopped up Curran with a fire axe.  Chopped off her arms and legs and then put tourniquets on her stumps.   You probably were shooting for some sort of controlled bleed thing, weren't you?  Unfortunately you messed it up and she bled out on you real quick."  

                Professor Creed shrugged and smiled guiltily, rotating his free hand palm up, as if to say _These little things happen.     _

" Stanwick…well…you kidnapped Stanwick out to the country, out where no one would hear her scream.  Then you whipped her for several hours with an electrical cable.   Then you strangled her with it."  

                Her tone was not judgmental.  Lisa Starling had dealt with serial killers in prison before.  If you expressed disapproval of the horrors they had committed, they tended to think it was funny.  What you did need to do was let them know you knew all the details of their crimes.  If you did that, they wouldn't lie to you.  

                "Ah yes," Professor Creed admitted.  "Well, Agent Starling, there is a lesson in Miss Stanwick's death.  Do you know why I killed her?"  

                "The same reason you killed all your victims, Professor Creed," Lisa said stridently.  "Because you enjoyed it."  

                "Not completely," he said, and seemed insulted.  "Please, Agent Starling, I did have a goal in who I killed.  What caused me to remove Miss Stanwick from my class roster was a paper she wrote."  

                "A paper?  You must be a tough grader, Professor Creed."  

                He nodded.  "Yes.  Miss Stanwick wrote a feminist review of Friedrich Nietzsche.  In it, she claimed that Nietzsche was a chauvinist, if you will, that he hated women.  I could have tolerated _that.  I've certainly read and graded plenty of silly ideas in my time.  But she claimed as given in her paper that he was a homosexual and __that was why he hated women."  _

                Lisa was puzzled and strove not to show it.  "And you feel that he was not?"  

                "I don't know," he explained.  "_We don't know, Agent Starling.  No one knows Friedrich Nietzsche's sexual orientation.  He never wrote about it.  And besides, you know, he was a __very sick man.  Unhealthy, I mean.  He suffered from debilitating headaches.  It's entirely possible he simply wasn't that interested in sexual relationships.   And he went mad in 1888."  _

                "Professor Creed, I didn't fly here for a philosophy lesson," Lisa said sharply.  

                "_Patience, Agent Starling.   Megan Stanwick was mistaken when she claimed to know Friedrich Nietzsche was a homosexual.  She couldn't possibly.  As a result, I simply followed Nietzsche's own advice in that very chapter of __Thus Spake Zarathustra that she quoted."  He closed his eyes and his voice became commanding and carrying.  The voice of a new prophet expounding a new way of life…or a philosophy professor trying to reach the sleepers in the back row.  _

"Then the old woman answered me: 'Many fine things has Zarathustra said, especially for those who are young enough for them.  Strange! Zarathustra knows little about woman, and yet he is right about her! Is this because with woman nothing is impossible? And now accept a little truth by way of thanks! I am old enough for it!  Swaddle it up and hold its mouth: otherwise it will scream too loudly, the little truth.' ' Woman, give me your little truth!' I said. And thus spoke the old woman: 'You go to women? Do not forget the whip!'"

"Very nice," Lisa said acerbically.  

"Oh, don't get all offended and hoist the banner of feminism on me, Agent Starling," Professor Creed grinned.  Those tiny pupils fixed on her.  "The whip can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  It's puerile and poor analysis to assume that Nietzsche thought every relationship between a man and a woman ought to be based on sadomasochism.  The whip can be interpreted as a means of keeping one's distance.  If you prefer, it might even be said that a woman is powerful, and can represent a real threat for a man if she chooses to be.  Miss Stanwick died because of her lack of understanding of Nietzsche."  

"And you think that's fitting?" Lisa asked.  

Professor Creed shrugged.  "How many will die because of your lack of understanding of the Bludgeon Man?" he asked.  

Lisa's hand tightened on the phone until her fingers cramped.  "I am working on it," she hissed.  

"But back to Nietzsche.  In fact, if you read _The Gay Science, Nietzsche's views on women become more clear.  He believed there was a fundamental difference between men and women.  Some of it, I believe, was that Nietzsche was a creature of his time…just as __we are.   The concept of women's rights barely existed in his time.  But the idea that men and women are fundamentally different, different in their natures…now there's something to play with.  Science has proved to bear him out more than we think.  Men and women have different blood chemistries.  Men have more testosterone, which changes them physically, creating more muscle, but also works on the brain.  It causes more violent behavior.  Give a woman enough anabolic steroids – enough synthetic male hormone – and she'll start to masculinize.  Her body will change, Agent Starling.  Her jaw will start to become more square, she'll begin to grow facial hair.  But her behavior will also change, Agent Starling.  She'll start to act more like a man would.  Give her enough, and she'll begin to act __very violently indeed.  Nietzsche might have changed his opinion had he known that, but in his day making a woman into a man – or a man into a woman – was an impossibility."  _

"So are you telling me that the Bludgeon Man is a female steroid abuser?" Lisa asked.  That _was a possibility, now that she thought about it.  _

But the professor shook his head.  "No," he said, and there was no artifice or pretense in his voice.  "The Bludgeon Man is indeed a man.  But a man estranged from his nature; he's angry because of that.  Someone took something from him once, Agent Starling, and that's what he wants more than anything.  The killing is a means for him to cope with a rage and shame that is almost unbearable.  He's no longer able to _do the sorts of things he wants to do."  _

"What would those be?"  Lisa said.  Now, here it was.  Once she'd let him say his little pretentious bullshit about Nietzsche, now here was something good.  Something she could use.  

"You've seen the Bludgeon Man before, Agent Starling," Professor Creed said.  "He has a criminal record.  I can assure you of that.  But he's moved on to some new tricks."  

Lisa leaned forward.  "Professor Creed, do you know who he is?"  

Professor Creed simply thought for a moment and offered her a cold smile.  

"Listen," she said urgently.  "I came out to see you because I thought you could help get this guy before he gets someone else.  Lives are at stake here, Professor.  Can we just cut to the chase here and you give me a name?"  

"No," Professor Creed said blandly.  "We'll do it my way or not at all.  You're under no obligation to accept my assistance."  

"And what if the Bludgeon Man kills someone else while you're playing games with me, Dr. Creed?" she asked cuttingly.  Then, catching herself, she added, "Professor Creed, excuse me."  

"That's all right," Thomas Creed said. "I do have a Ph.D, so 'Doctor' is a title I am entitled to.  At Cornell I preferred Professor, as that was a better descriptor of my work, and of course once I'd gone to trial if anyone said 'Dr. Creed', that started off _reams of poorly written articles comparing me to Dr. Hannibal Lecter – your cousin's husband, wasn't he?  But you may call me 'Dr. Creed' if you prefer."  _

"I'd prefer you quit playing games with me and told me who he was."  Lisa thought for a moment about her first cousin, and that of course made her think of her cousin once removed.  

"You can't always have what you want," he observed coolly.  

"What if the Bludgeon Man takes another life while you're teaching me philosophy?"  Lisa repeated.

Professor Creed seemed not to follow.  "So what if he does?"  he asked.  The concept that an innocent life being taken was a bad thing would not occur readily to him.  

"Just tell me what you know," Lisa hissed.  

"All in good time," Professor Creed said.  "For now, Agent Starling, I suggest you look to the past.  You've seen the Bludgeon Man before.  Seek out your past and you may yet find him.  If that doesn't do it, then you may come back and I will try to help you again.  Thank you so much for coming, Agent Starling.  You've brought a special tinge to my day."  

Then he rose from the chair and bowed once, sardonically.  He placed his phone back on its hook.  Lisa's eyes widened.  

"Professor Creed!" she shouted.  But he'd already hung the phone back up and was retreating back into his cell.  He might be able to hear her through the Plexiglass, but he didn't show it.  Then he was back through the door, into his living area, and he was gone.  

Lisa Starling stood up.  Her heart was pounding and her pretty features twisted in anger.  She let out a loud sound of frustration and left the visiting booth.  The guard waiting there seemed apologetic.  

"Didn't work out so well, huh?"  he asked.  

"Well…," Lisa said.  "I think he knows something, but he's not letting on what."  

"Well, if the visit's over, I gotta take you back down," the guard said apologetically. 

Lisa Starling glared at the empty space behind the Plexiglass.  Then she let air hiss out from between her teeth.  

"Fine," she said. She stalked along, very annoyed, back down to her rental car.  Her return flight to Burlington returned that evening; she'd hoped to have more time with the professor than she'd gotten.  

 In his cell, Professor Creed lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes.  A fruitful first meeting.  He began two letters.  The first was a simple, courteous thank-you note to Lisa Starling, thanking her for meeting him and assuring her of his willingness to help should his first tip not work out.  He signed it _Thomas Creed, PhD and put it in his food slot for the guards to pick up.  _

The second was another letter to Marie Lavelle.  Using the code system they had employed, it seemed at first to simply be the same sort of chatty, friendly letter one might expect an American death-row inmate to write to his European pen-pal.  Only one who knew how to read it correctly would know what it actually meant.  And once it was sent to France and Susana Alvarez Lecter received it, she grinned to see the true meaning of the letter.  It was but a few scant, terse sentences, as coded communications demand.

SHE CAME.  I GAVE HER THE FIRST STAGE.  SHE WAS MAD BUT WILL BE BACK.  ALL MY LOVE.  CREED.


	4. Journeys

                _Author's note:  Luna – what's odd about Agent Krause?  Just a variant spelling of my wife's maiden name.  _

_                Steel – um, I didn't make up Clinton Correctional Facility – that's a real honest-to-God prison where New York State keeps its death row (ever since we voted it back in back in 1995).  _

                It was time for a new victim.  

                The Bludgeon Man was ready.  The murder of Mariana Medina had satisfied him for a few weeks, but it was time again.  Very carefully, he sat down at the table and began to prepare his kit.  This was something he was exceedingly good at.    He'd sought out a new target.  Found her from work.  His work at the hospital was excellent for finding targets; he got names, addresses, everything he could need.  

                He picked up the yellow sheet of paper he'd taken from work and observed it.  Mary Morales.  Same initials as his previous victim, he pondered.  Address was over in Alewife.  That would be convenient; he could hop on the T to escape.  

                The Bludgeon Man stared at himself in the mirror of the cheap apartment.  He was satisfied with his own reflection.  Here, his shame hardly showed.  What stared back at him was a man in full.  His goatee was thick and bristly.  No one knew of what had happened to him.  What that…_bitch…._had taken from him before she dumped him in prison.  

                The thought of his transformation always brought rage, more rage than he could bear.  For now, he needed to calm down.  The Bludgeon Man stood up and took several deep breaths.   He stuck his arms out to the side and forced his rage to flow out of his fingertips.  It would be there when he needed to work, he knew that.  Then he began.  

                He began as he always did, putting on the brown shirt and pants of his stolen UPS uniform.  It was great camouflage for his urban hunting grounds.  People saw the uniform and forgot the person wearing it.  Plus, it gave him a great way to bring his killing kit along with him.  

                It was his killing kit that he began to work on now.  The Bludgeon Man sat down at his cheap kitchen table.  On it was a black nylon duffle bag and a large cardboard box.  In the duffle bag, he began assembling his equipment.  There was a policeman's nightstick.  The Bludgeon Man held it in his arms for a few minutes before placing it in the bag.  A polished piece of black polycarbonate.  It was _such _a wonderful tool.  Now, restraints: rope, duct tape, and handcuffs.  Next came a blowtorch and a butane lighter.  After that, a blackjack of shiny black leather.  That was another good tool.   After that, a wickedly sharp Ka-bar knife in its brown leather sheath.  Finally, there was a Gurkha Kukri knife, a wide-bladed heavy thing that could be used to amputate limbs, if that was to your desire.  

                Next, the Bludgeon Man took out a few syringes and filled them.  One was with sodium pentothal, a quick-acting sedative.  It would put his target to sleep very quickly.  Next came two syringes of muscle relaxant.  He usually put one of these into his victim's jaw, to immobilize the mouth and throat, and another into the spinal cord to paralyze the body.  He put these into a pencil case.  The Bludgeon Man was not a doctor, but his job at the hospital had enabled him to get access to controlled substances.  The pencil case went on his clipboard, which in turn went into the side pocket of his bag.

                Then again, he pondered, his job at the hospital had brought him to his shame beforehand.  But he could not think of that lest he become enraged again.  No, this was work.  This was what he did to prove himself to the world.  

                The Bludgeon Man took a pair of oversized jeans and a leather jacket from where they hung in his closet door.  The jeans had extremely wide legs and he was able to put them on with his shoes on.  The leather jacket covered up his UPS uniform shirt.  He gathered up the bag and put it into the box, which he taped shut.  

                There was a T station a few blocks from his home.  The Bludgeon Man picked up the box and put it under his arm.  Although it was heavy, he was strong enough to carry it with ease.  After all, he was a man.  Even despite what the bitch had done to him, he was still a man.  

                No one paid much attention to him on the subway.  He was calm and quiet.  He switched trains when he had to and got onto the Red Line train heading out to Alewife.  No one thought anything of him, which was exactly what he wanted.  

                As he got out of the train station, he slipped down an alleyway and hid behind a Dumpster.  There, he was able to slip out of the jeans and jacket and donned a UPS cap.  From the box he took his clipboard. He hid the jeans and jacket behind the dumpster, where they would likely remain until he needed them again.  

                The Bludgeon Man whistled a merry tune as he came out of the alleyway and headed down to his victim's apartment.  He remembered for a moment how he had chosen this victim.  Blood work sent down to the lab.  ER patient, that was it.  She'd cut her foot on a rusty nail and they'd screened for tetanus.  Unwittingly, they'd also given her a death sentence.  He'd seen her paperwork and there he was.  Something in the name had called to him.  He understood only partly what made him choose his victims:  somewhere, sometime, he would get the bitch, and then everything would be perfect.  

                He strolled up to the apartment building and waited at the door.  It was five-thirty or so, and people were starting to get home from work.  One of the residents held the door for him.  He grinned.  It was so _easy_ sometimes.  People saw the uniform and assumed he was just there to deliver his package.  The Bludgeon Man's purpose was much more unspeakable.

                He strolled up to Mary Morales's door and knocked briefly.  Standing there, package at his feet and clipboard in hand, he looked exactly as he should.  A voice came from inside.  

                "Who is it?"  

                "UPS," the Bludgeon Man said calmly.  He took his pencil case out and got his hypo ready.  The rattle of the door unlocking made his stomach swell with anticipation.  The door opened.  Mary Morales was a young woman with dark brown hair and dark eyes.  The Bludgeon Man tilted his head.  Was this the bitch?  Had he finally gotten lucky?  

                He smiled disarmingly and handed her the clipboard.  "I need you to sign for this package," he explained.  She smiled back and reached for the clipboard.  She took the proffered pen and began to sign her name.  Boy oh boy, sometimes it was just so _easy.  _

                Quickly, the Bludgeon Man grabbed her arm.  She gave him a shocked and surprised look.  He jabbed the hypodermic into her arm and pressed the plunger.  Just in case, he put his foot in the door.  Once, one of his victims had gotten the door shut on him and locked it.  He'd had to force it open.  Since then, he'd learned.  She only had about ten or so seconds before she went bye-bye anyway.  

                "Express service, bitch," he grinned, and shouldered his way inside, closing the door behind him.  She turned and headed for the phone.  Yeah, _right, _that was gonna work.  She stumbled and fell to the floor, the drug working its magic.  The Bludgeon Man loomed over her, chuckling.  He picked her up, handcuffed her, and looked around for the bedroom.  That was usually the best place to get set up.  

                The Bludgeon Man brought his victim to the bed and tied her down.  He injected the muscle relaxant in the usual two sites.  That job at the hospital came in _real _handy about now.  Her eyes fluttered and she stared at him.  Now she was terrified, realizing what was about to happen to her.  Carefully, the Bludgeon Man removed his tools, taking time to line them up neatly on the bed next to her.  He lit the blowtorch with a _floop _and waved the lighter out.  

                "Hey there," the Bludgeon Man said, and picked up the nightstick.  He tapped it against his palm.  It made a fleshy _thock _sound when he did.  He grinned.  

                "Gonna show you a thing or two," he said.  _Thock.  Thock.  Thock.  _

The woman let out a wordless whimper and squirmed on the bed.  

                _Thock.  Thock.  Thock. _

He raised the nightstick high over his head.

"This is gonna hurt," he whispered.

                …

                The Paris airport was quite noisy and busy, but the airline's executive lounge was calm and quiet, a fortress for the wealthy to take shelter in against the proletarian masses thronging the airport.  Uniformed waiters offered juice or coffee to the waiting travelers.  There was also a complete wet bar available, if alcohol was what you wanted.  Televisions tuned to CNN and a few French TV stations were mounted overhead, where the passengers sitting in soft, comfortable chairs could watch them.  Finally, they could plug their laptops into the lounge's LAN and enjoy free Internet access while they waited.  And that was what Susana was doing.  

                Her co-workers believed she was attending a surgical conference in Philadelphia.  She actually did have a registration package for that, in another name.  Susana knew that Lisa knew of her cover identity as Suzanne Arsenault Lesage.  Just in case, she was traveling under another cover identity.   Susana was relatively confident that the FBI had never heard of Dr. Sabine Duval before, since she only existed in a series of expertly falsified documents.  Dr. Duval had a plane ticket and a hotel reservation in the United States.  She also had a passport, a driver's license, and some other ID, including a membership in the airline's travel program.  Now _this _was the only way to travel.  

                Susana had bought the laptop a few days ago for cash, and there was little to no chance they could track her this way.  She surfed to the Boston Herald's website, reviewing the latest news articles about the Bludgeon Man.  It seemed that he was still quite busy.   A murder yesterday; that was good.  

                For a moment Susana Alvarez Lecter wondered exactly what it was she was doing.  To travel back to the United States was quite a risk.  If she was caught she could potentially face the death penalty.  At the least, she might well never see her son again.  That had argued that she should have stayed in France, where she was relatively safe.  

                In France, though, Susana had found herself feeling curiously empty despite the real joys of her son and career.  She loved her son; she enjoyed her career.   But something was missing.  It hadn't taken her too long to realize what it was.  Susana wanted a man in her life.  Her only prior experience had been Luke Taylor, and he'd been far too religiously obsessed to be a suitable partner.  

                She could have had her pick of Parisian men, but she found that they didn't please her.  Oh, there were plenty of wealthy doctors who would've wanted to be with her, but Susana wanted a man who could cope with both of her natures:  the medically trained daughter of privilege and the sociopathic killer.  For that, she realized, her choices were limited.  When her son had been two, she had come to the realization that in order to satisfy her, a man would need to be like her father.  A man for whom elegance and brutality were but two facets of his personality, complementing each other and the whole.  A man capable of the same sort of atrocities she was, but also just as able to appreciate fine wine or fashion.  

                She wasn't unreasonable.  He didn't have to be as wealthy as her or even close.  She knew that there were relatively few men who had met her criteria; the odds of finding one with her level of riches was infinitesimal.  But Susana was a daughter of privilege, and like many women born rich, she was indifferent to money.   When she celebrated her son's second birthday, she had decided to seek out her soul mate in the prisons and asylums of the world, where perhaps he would be waiting.  

                Most of them were useless to her, human flotsam that had made the mistake of committing murder and getting caught.  More like Miggs or Sammie than her father.  But eventually she had settled on a few likely men and begun to write them.  After joining a few anti-death-penalty groups, it was easy to gain enough protective camouflage to weed out the candidates to a final selection.  Oddly, Susana agreed with the anti-death-penalty groups.  If someone had tried to murder her or her family, she would have preferred to take her own revenge.  Having the state do it was weak, in her view.  

                She'd heard of Professor Creed's crimes when she was living in Virginia.  There hadn't been much, as Professor Creed had been in upstate New York and she had been in DC.  Once she'd been able to refresh her memory on his crimes, he had seemed the likeliest.  The letters she got from him were erudite, educated, and polite.  She was relatively sure she had found the man she sought.  

                Being on Death Row had made it difficult.  She was rich enough that she could have paid off some guard somewhere to allow a prisoner in a regular prison to escape, but Death Row was another matter.  Professor Creed was only allowed out for court visits.  The last had been two years ago.  Another would not be likely at all for some time to come.  

                It was other matters that had made it possible.  Susana had corresponded with a Boston lawyer for several years after she had lived there.  The lawyer received a very healthy fee for checking into a matter for her once a month and calling a relatively inexpensive voice-mail number in New York City.  It had been six months since she had gotten the answer she had wanted.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter was not a profiler, and the only relations she had ever had with the FBI were as hunter and prey – from both sides of the equation.  But she had known a few things that those in the FBI would have given a great deal to know.  She knew that the Bludgeon Man would eventually turn to serial murder.  In addition she knew why he was killing.  It had taken him rather longer than she expected to get around to it, but eventually he had.  She also knew something that her cousin would have given a great deal to know.  She knew the name of the Bludgeon Man.  So long as he didn't screw up and get caught, Susana believed that she could play these cards to get Professor Creed safely to freedom.  

                Her flight had arrived, and Susana strolled down to the gate to board the plane.  She was able to pre-board, along with the rest of the elite travel members, and she settled into her first-class seat with relish.  This would be a pleasant flight.  While the rest of the passengers shuffled back into steerage, Susana took out her compact and studied her face in the mirror.  

                Her face was not the same as it had once been.  She'd disdained the collagen injections that her father had once used, instead doing the work on herself.  Her face was not so different from her old face, but with cosmetics, differently colored and styled hair, and spectacles, it would do.  Fortunately, she was already imperially slim.  Even so, she'd dieted so as to look like a typical French woman.  That had been difficult; Susana enjoyed her food a great deal.  She wore a severely tailored suit and had recently had her eyebrows tweezed until even she, a veteran of different painful beauty rituals, had gritted her teeth and wished death on the young woman doing the tweezing.  She wanted to look the way an American would think a French woman looked.  Had she been male, she would have worn a striped shirt and a beret, but this would do.  

                As the plane flew over the Atlantic, Susana thought about things past and present.  She thought of her father, and what he might think of the man she was intending to free.  Would he approve?  She thought that he would.  She thought of Professor Creed's letters.  He'd been quite friendly, although by mutual agreement the letters themselves had largely been small talk. 

                She thought about Lisa Starling, and what she might be doing.  Lisa was heading up the hunt for the Bludgeon Man.  She wondered idly what would happen if Lisa knew of her involvement.  For now, she doubted that – Lisa could hardly be tracking every last visitor to the US from France.  Her identity documents indicated her to be about five years older than she actually was.  Susana knew that her FBI file indicated her to be quite vain.  In that, they were more correct than they thought.  But if they thought she would balk at making herself older on an identity that she'd be throwing away as soon as she was safely past Customs, they were mistaken.  Was Lisa close?  Had she figured out who the Bludgeon Man was?  Susana didn't think so, but Lisa was smarter than a lot of people gave her credit for.  

                She wondered about what Professor Creed would be like when she finally had him free.  She wasn't so naïve as to think he would be perfect, but he seemed to be pretty close to what she was looking for.  In the event things didn't work out, she would simply offer him the same deal she had once planned to offer Luke Taylor:  some money, a new identity, and a ticket to wherever he wanted.  All the same, she rather hoped things would work out for the best.  He seemed to be her type.  

                Then she thought about the Bludgeon Man, and her first encounter with him back in Boston.  That had been a surprise.  But all those years ago, the Bludgeon Man had set into motion a series of events that would hopefully culminate in freedom for Professor Creed.  Then, they would be together.  As far as the Bludgeon Man, Susana cared not a whit whether he was free or not, so long as he remained free until he was able to unwittingly play his role in freeing the professor.  Then, she might give Lisa the final piece of the puzzle she needed.  

                After several hours, the plane landed at Kennedy, and Susana Alvarez Lecter waited patiently in the non-citizens line.  A bored customs officer took her passport, looked at her, saw only the well-dressed Frenchwoman, and asked her what her purpose was.  Susana's response was a bit frosty, just the sort of thing he was expecting.  

                "I am here for a medical conference," she said with a pronounced French accent.  "For one week.  Do you want to see the registration from the conference?"  

                "Sure," the man said in a lackluster tone.  

                Susana handed him the informational packet.  He glanced at it for a moment.  

                "Anything to declare?"  

                "_Non," _Susana said.  "Only for personal use." 

                The official stamped her passport and handed it back to her along with her paperwork, and Susana Alvarez Lecter proceeded into the country where she was wanted for over twenty counts of first-degree murder.  She headed over to the check-in counter and checked in for her flight to Philadelphia.  She was vaguely nervous about being in an airport and had strongly considered getting a car and driving to Philly, but that would make her stick out.  So she went calmly to the gate for her connecting flight to Philadelphia.  

                That flight was much shorter, and Susana had little time to ponder what would happen next.  That did not bother her terribly much.  She knew what she had to do for right now.  Once she landed, she collected her luggage and her rental car.  In the airport gift shop, she purchased an inexpensive postcard. Her hotel was not far away from the airport.  It wasn't quite as fancy as she normally favored, but this was not for the long haul.  Besides, she had a job to do here.   In her own way, Susana Alvarez Lecter was as disciplined as her mother when it came to a job.  She had learned very well what being cocky got her.  But it was clean and reasonably comfortable for the night.  

                In her room, Susana showered and changed into jeans and sneakers.  She hadn't worn such things for years, and she frowned at herself in the mirror.  But it was necessary for what she wanted to do.  Consulting the phone book helped her find what she wanted – a convenience store not far away from the hotel, but far enough away that she wouldn't be seen.  She drove by the store and noticed a sign in the window, advertising PREPAID PHONES HERE.  

                Susana entered the convenience store and skulked around for a bit, picking out a diet coke she had no intention of drinking, before going up to the counter and asking about the phones.  The cashier, a young woman who looked like life had been a lot harder on her than it should have been, shrugged.  

                "The phones are a hundred bucks.  You call and they walk you through programming it.  Then you buy cards when you need to charge it up.  They've got a rebate where you get fifty bucks back."  Her tone was short and without interest.    

                "Oh," Susana said.  "Okay.  Can I get one of those?"  

                Susana knew it was likely that she was being videotaped, but she also knew it wasn't likely that it would matter.  So long as nothing happened, they would eventually recycle the tape.  And by the time the FBI got around to running down the phone, it wouldn't matter any more at all.  Besides, from the look of the dilapidated store, the camera probably would show a woman about five foot four, dressed casually, wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and sunglasses.  

                She pulled out several crumpled twenties from her pocket and the uninterested cashier gave her a small box containing the phone and some accessories.  Susana liked these phones a great deal for one simple reason:  you could buy them with complete anonymity and get them activated with whatever name and address you wanted to. They didn't work for the long term – eventually, even the FBI would figure it out – but they were harder to trace than most, and were generally reliable for a week or so.  Before, once, she'd called and had it turned on with her cousin's name and address.  

                For now, she simply returned to her hotel and found a pay phone, located conveniently at the end of the hall, where she called the phone company.  A representative was most helpful in helping her to activate and program the phone.  Her service was activated in the name Elisa Chesoyo.  The company representative told her that her phone would be active in just a few hours.  

                Susana plugged in the phone to charge and took out the postcard she had bought at the airport.  She tapped the hotel pen against her nose and thought for a moment.  Then she began.  

                _Dear Thomas, _

_                I know it's been a while since I wrote you last.  It's been difficult.  But we are still cousins and I do think of you from time to time.  I know your time is short, and so I'd like to try writing to you.   You may write me or call me if you prefer – (215) 555-8437.  _ 

                _Your cousin, _

_              Elisa Chesoyo_

                She took the postcard out to the mailbox across the street and dropped it in.  In a few days it would arrive at the prison and Professor Creed would have her phone number.  While she waited for the professor's call, she did have a few other things to take care of.  But the groundwork had been laid.  


	5. Shores of the Atlantic

Lisa Starling was angry as she pulled back into the prison parking lot.  The Bludgeon Man had killed _again. _Right under the joint task force's nose, too.  Jason Sullivan had been flacking the press for them, saving the FBI the trouble.  Lisa found she quite liked the detective lieutenant.  He was good at his job and utterly determined to catch the Bludgeon Man.  _Besides, he was cute_, a little voice inside her said, one she was beginning to admit existed.

But now, here, in this prison town, she had work to do herself.  This time, she was going to get the professor to talk.  Professor Creed was going to have to put up or shut up.  Either he had just gleaned or guessed something or he had real information.  If he was jerking her around, he would pay for it.  If he actually had information, then Lisa was going to make him cough it up.  

It hadn't bothered Lisa Starling that he played the games he had.  She'd learned to expect it whenever she had dealt with prisoners.  It was a game for them, and it wasn't like Professor Creed had much to lose.  But once the body of Mary Morales had been discovered, that changed things.  No doubt as to who it was – there was the same horrible mutilations, the same bloody crime scene.  The professor's games were simply an annoyance when their cost was measured in Lisa Starling's time.  When the cost was an innocent life, then she found herself enraged by the idea.  She knew that he would think the whole thing _terribly _amusing, and that enraged her more.  

_Just what **are **you going to do to make him talk? _a voice asked her as she was brought back into the prison.  The same captain greeted her.  He seemed surprised to see her, but hid it behind a level of cool, detached professionalism that appealed oddly to her.   He agreed to let her see Creed and brought her up to the cellblock.  

Again, Lisa Starling sat in the visiting booth, a phone held to her ear.  Again, the door to Professor Creed's cell opened and he walked through slowly, almost ambling.  Again, those tiny, inhuman pupils locked on her own.  Below them was a small, private smile as if appreciating a joke that only he could appreciate.  

"Agent Starling," he said calmly, oh so softly.  She had to strain to hear the voice through the receiver.  "So nice to see you again." 

"Professor Creed," Lisa said sharply.   

Professor Creed's mouth turned down in disapproval.  "Why travel all this way just to be snippy?" he asked.  "Politeness, Agent Starling.  I suspect you have something to ask me, anyway.  Doesn't behoove you to be rude."

                "Have you heard?" she asked directly.  

                "About the Bludgeon Man?  Yes, actually, I have.  We're allowed to have radios, you know, and I was able to hear it on the news.  It seems he has struck again."  

                "Yes, he has," Lisa snapped.  "Professor Creed, you know, you're going to die.  If you help us, maybe we can help you."  

                Professor Creed chuckled.  "And how would you help me, Agent Starling?"  

                "If you know his name, and you help us find him, I'll be willing to testify that you did," Lisa said.  "Whether that is in front of a judge or in front of the governor.  Might get you commuted to life in prison."  

                "Life in prison.  What a wonderful gift.  Help me, and you will try to keep the state from executing me, instead choosing to keep me in prison for the rest of my natural life."  Professor Creed seemed to ponder the idea.  "No guarantees, of course."  

                "I can promise I'd testify, that's it," Lisa admitted.  "I can't promise you a commutation.  But so help me God, if I find out that you had information that could have saved a life, I swear I'll do everything in my power to get you on that gurney as fast as I possibly can."  Her eyes burned at him.  

                Professor Creed chuckled and smiled patronizingly.  "You overestimate your power," he said.  "My fate is in the hands of judges, not law enforcement.  You have no authority to speed me into the death chamber any quicker than I would otherwise go.  Tell me, have you figured out yet how he's able to do what he does without being overheard?" 

                Lisa did, but it hadn't been made public.  And she certainly wasn't about to tell _him. _  "We have some theories," she hedged.  

                Professor Creed chuckled.  "You mean you won't tell me, because you're holding it back," he said calmly.  "He's drugging the victims.  You've almost assuredly found the drugs in the bloodstream.  You may have had more difficulty finding the injection sites, that wouldn't surprise me.   Beaten, bruised, burned, a tiny needle wound would be hard to find.  You'll find one injection site…oh…on the arm, probably, and the other on the cheek or perhaps under the tongue."  He grinned widely at her, displaying sharp teeth.  "He sedates them and uses muscle relaxant afterwards so that they can't move.  Isn't that correct, Agent Starling?"  

                The shock and surprise of having a man who'd been locked down maximum security for six years tell her things that only the task force knew forced Lisa Starling out of her chair.  The drugs had been held back, and on a few victims they _had _been able to find needle marks.  But Lisa and Sullivan had ordered that information held back, locked down tight.  There were regular cops and FBI who weren't privy to that information.  Yet behind the Plexiglass, Professor Creed knew.  And _where, _too_.  _  Her eyes burned at Professor Creed.  Driven completely by a combination of shock and sheer animal desire, she smacked the Plexiglass separating them.  Her mouth worked.  

                "You know who he is!" she said sharply.  

                Professor Creed smiled widely and said nothing.  

                "Professor Creed, tell me who the Bludgeon Man is," Lisa panted.   

                Professor Creed stretched leisurely and shrugged.  

                "Why should I do that?"  Professor Creed asked.  "As you yourself said, you can't even guarantee me that you could get this death sentence off my head.  You have little to offer, and frankly, you don't have the authority to demand that I tell you."  

                "You could save lives," Lisa said impetuously.  It was _so _frustrating.  The answer to the question she sought was right there, on the other side of the Plexiglass.  She wanted to reach through it and shake him until he talked.  The fact that another serial killer had once taunted a Starling with information about a killer wasn't lost on her.  

                _No way am I going down that road.  Besides, Detective Sullivan's cuter and he doesn't hang people up by their ribs.  _

"_Save _lives?" Professor Creed chuckled.  "Now _that _would be new."  

                "You want to tell me," Lisa said urgently.  "You wouldn't be playing this game if you didn't."  

                "I have information," Professor Creed agreed.  "The question is, Agent Starling, what will you give me for that information?"  

                Lisa bit her lip.  "We could…we could take you into federal custody.  You'd be off Death Row."  

                "That would get me out of this unit, that is true.  But I'd simply be trading one maximum-security facility for another.  Don't tell me you can offer me even so much as medium security.  You can't.  And the state will fight you to execute me."  He chuckled coldly.  "Angela Curran's family is quite well off, and her father has made it his business to see that I will be put to death.  As an FBI agent, even as the Deputy Chief of Behavioral Sciences, you don't have the firepower to match his pet politicians."  

                "Where are you getting your information from?" Lisa parried, knowing he was correct.  

                "Never mind that.  What's important is that I do know."   Professor Creed said.  

                "_What _do you know?" Lisa pursued.  She was hooked and she knew it, and unfortunately, so did he.  But the sight of the pitiful, broken bodies of the Bludgeon Man's victims had left its mark on her.  If it took playing a killer's game to keep another living person from joining the sad ranks of those bodies, so be it.  

                "How much _do _you know, Professor Creed?" she demanded.  

                Professor Creed's small, private smile suddenly expanded into a knowing grin. 

                "Enough," he said.  "I know his methods.  I know why he kills.  And yes, I do know his name.  Enough for you to catch him, Agent Starling."  

                "Tell me who he is," Lisa Starling said between her teeth.  

                Professor Creed chuckled dryly and shook his head.  

                "So it seems I have something you want," he said calmly.  "Marx said, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'.  I have the ability to give you something you need, Agent Starling.  Can you give me what I need?"  

                Lisa Starling stared hard at the caged killer beyond the Plexiglass.  Part of her was very nervous to say what she was about to.  God only knew what price he might demand.  But to _not _deal with him was to play with the lives of innocents.  And she was not willing to pay that price.  

                "What do you want?" she asked, and in that moment she knew she would give it to him.  

                Professor Creed sighed and looked off into space.  

                "Before my incarceration," he said lightly, "I used to go to the water on vacation.  I owned a home on Keuka Lake, here in New York.  Occasionally I went there.   Before I owned that cottage, I went to Martha's Vineyard."  

                Those tiny pinpoint pupils fixed on her, seeming to dissect her even through the Plexiglass barrier.  

                "I won't tell _you _any more of what I know about the Bludgeon Man, Agent Starling.  Nor shall I tell a living soul while I am here.  I know perfectly well it's my fate to be executed here.  So what I want, Agent Starling, is something that I can have."  

                "What do you want?" she repeated.  

                "I want to stand on the beach, with my bare feet in the Atlantic," he said simply.  

                Lisa Starling stopped and blinked.   It sounded so poetic, here in this concrete factory of misery.  

                "You want _what?" _she asked.  

                "I'll be perfectly happy to tell what I know of the Bludgeon Man.  But not to you, and not here.  I'll tell a judge, in Boston, in open court.  Federal or state makes no difference to me.  I want to be housed for a night or two in a Boston jail.  Whatever security measures are necessary makes no difference to me either, I'm not an unreasonable man.  I do want my dinner to come from Legal Sea Foods in Boston.  Have you tried it?  Excellent fare, really, the best.  And sometime during my sojourn in Boston, I want to be taken to Martha's Vineyard.  With whatever security measures are necessary, of course.  You may transport me in shackles and have as many guards as you see fit.  And once there, I want twenty minutes to stand on the beach, without shoes, with my bare feet in the Atlantic Ocean." 

                Lisa Starling stared at the man in the visiting booth with a completely blank look on her face.  His voice was completely calm, but not without power.  He'd clearly been thinking about this for a long time, locked here in this blank place of concrete and steel.  A simple dream, but not without power, something that had sustained him this long.  

                Could she give that to him?  What he wanted was a little different that what she would have expected, but she thought so.  There was a federal judge in Boston who tended to be receptive to the FBI; all she would need to do is make a few phone calls and see if a judge would be willing to subpoena him.  It didn't seem likely he would fight the subpoena.  

                Dinner from Legal Sea Foods?  Shit, she'd get it takeout and bring it to him herself. Getting him to Martha's Vineyard would be hard, but not impossible.  She could sweet-talk the Marshal's Service.  Lisa had learned how to sweet-talk them.  

                "If I do that for you…if I get you to Martha's Vineyard…are you going to tell the judge who the Bludgeon Man is?" Lisa Starling whispered.  "No games?  No lies?"  

                "Not a one," Professor Creed agreed, and held up his hand palm out.  Oddly, Lisa believed him.  "I know you can't put this together immediately, Agent Starling.  But you will let me know, won't you?"  

                "I'll see what I can do," Lisa promised.  

                On the trip back, she felt completely confused and puzzled.  Professor Creed was under sentence of death. His appeal to New York's Supreme Court had just been turned down.  That put him on his federal appeals.  To be blunt, the guy didn't have much longer to go.  And all he wanted was a trip to Boston?  

                Then again, she had to allow, he hadn't been out of the prison for a few years.  Only for court appearances, and his last court appearance was two years go.  Perhaps the professor was resigned to his fate, especially if he was telling the truth about his victim's wealthy father determined to see him in the death chamber.  Perhaps one more time at Martha's Vineyard would let him die happy.  

                Back in Boston, she told her staff about Professor Creed's offer.  Agent Krause, who had legal training, volunteered to talk to the judge.  Jason Sullivan, who was allowed to sit in on the FBI task force meeting as a liaison to the Boston PD's task force, opined that Lisa's first suspicions were correct.  Creed knew he was done for and wanted one last trip to Boston before he was executed.  Lisa nodded and tried not to think about how tall or handsome he was, as well as the fact that he didn't kill people or taunt her with information.  

                The law moves slowly, but it can be speeded along when needed.  The judge was more than willing to grant the FBI task force a subpoena ordering Thomas Lawrence Creed, PhD, to report to the court and tell what he knew.  A process server who was quite nervous to be on death row duly served Professor Creed in his cell.   The professor examined the paperwork ordering him to report to the US Federal District Court in Boston at the end of the week and referred a copy to his guards, who began arranging his transport with the US Marshal's Service.  

                A few days after he had been served, Professor Creed politely asked one of the guards to send a ranking officer down to his cell.  This request was granted, and the captain of the cellblock went down to his cell to see what he wanted.  

                "I would like to make a phone call, please," Professor Creed said politely.  

                "Who you going to call?" the captain asked.  

                "My cousin.  Elisa Chesoyo from Philadelphia.  We haven't spoken in a number of years, but she recently wrote me and told me she would like to speak with me again."  

                The captain shrugged.  Death row inmates were allowed to make two ten-minute phone calls per week to family.  This was the first time since the professor had arrived here that he had asked for such a call; up until now his family had largely disowned him.  But if Creed wanted a call, it was fine with the captain.  Might give them an extra measure to control him.  Although Professor Creed had maintained a perfect disciplinary record on death row, he still made his guards nervous.  If one of his relatives would talk to him, that was good; he'd mind his manners because he didn't want to lose phone privileges.  

                So the phone was brought down to Professor Creed's cell and placed inside the food slot.  Professor Creed dialed the Philadelphia phone number on the postcard he had received and waited for a moment as it rang a few times.  He certainly hoped she would pick up.  

                "Hello?" Susana Alvarez Lecter said.  

                "Elisa.  It's Thomas.  I got your postcard.  I'm afraid we have only ten minutes."  

                "Okay," she said.  "How are you, Thomas?"  

                "I'm all right," he said.  "I do have some news.  I'll be moved temporarily.  I'll be testifying at the end of the week in a…certain matter.  Very exciting."  

                "Really?  When are you going?"  

                "I'm to appear in court at seven AM Friday," Professor Creed said.  

                "Well, that's great," Susana said calmly.  "That ought to be interesting, to say the least.  What are the rules on visitation there?"  

                Professor Thomas Creed knew that she had no intention of ever visiting him in the prison, and that was just fine by him.   "You need to register with the prison and get checked out, and then they'll let you visit.  It would be _so _nice to see you."  He gave Susana the number she needed to call to register as a visitor, and she dutifully wrote it down and promised to check it out for the benefit of those listening in on the conversation.  

                "Okay, Thomas," Susana said.  "I'll see what I can do to get up there and see you."  

                Professor Thomas Creed smiled and looked around his cell.  He had a few things he needed to do in the next few days himself.   He felt quite good, actually.  

                "I'll be waiting," he said.  


	6. Escape

                It began calmly, in the wee hours of the morning.  At 2:00 AM, two armed guards headed down the cellblock to Professor Creed's cell.  They stood calmly in front of the door.  One held a man's suit on a hanger; the other a pair of handcuffs, leg irons, and a belly chain.  Professor Creed came calmly to his door and looked at them.  

                "OK, Creed," one of the guards said.  "I want you to get changed into your civvies here.  Then we're gonna cuff you and take you down to the van.  You know the drill.  Don't give us no trouble and you'll be just fine."  

                "Of course," Professor Creed answered, watching the guards easily with his pinpoint pupils.  

                The guard put the suit through the food slot of the cell.  Professor Creed changed clothes with an easy speed.  He did not dawdle but he did not rush either.  Once he had dressed, the guard handed a set of black wing tips through the food slot.  Professor Creed put them on and then looked expectantly at the officer.  It was quite pleasant to wear civilian clothes.  He had asked to be allowed to testify in civilian clothes, and they had given him this request.  The jacket and pants were inexpensive, as they had come from the jail's used-clothing room.  Still, it was much better than the usual prison jumpsuit.   

                "Hands in front or behind, Officer?" he asked in a friendly fashion.  

                "Front," grunted the officer.  

                Professor Creed stuck his hands obligingly through the food slot.  The guard locked the cuffs onto Creed's wrists.  Once he was secured, Professor Creed stepped back from his cell door and waited for them to open it.  He did not intend to be a problem for his guards.  This was something he was quite looking forward to.  

                The guards were swift as they moved to shackle his feet and attach his cuffs to a chain circling his waist.  He was quite cooperative, standing submissively still as they worked.  Soon enough, Professor Creed was restrained.  Each guard took one of his arms and escorted him from the cell.  Metal gates crashed behind them as they walked out of the prison.

                They led the professor out to the van outside.  There were two equally large and burly federal marshals there to take charge and custody of the prisoner.  After signing the documents, Professor Thomas Creed was legally transferred from the custody of the New York Department of Corrections to the custody of the US Marshals Service.  The van was already parked in a secure area of the prison; there was nowhere he could go even if he did manage to overcome his restraints.  They helped him into the van and he sat down in the back.  A steel gate separated him from them in the van.  Professor Creed sat down and closed his eyes.  He thought about Plato's _The Cave _as the van started and drove off.  It was still very early in the morning.   Perhaps 2:30, the professor thought.  

                The plan was quite simple.  It would take five hours to ferry the professor from the prison in Dannemora to Boston, where the grand jury was waiting to hear his testimony.  It was much preferable to transport the professor in the middle of the night. By seven-thirty or so, he would be safely ensconced in South Bay Jail.  

                The van trundled along through upstate New York, heading up a stretch of Interstate 87.  The professor was quiet and did not make any trouble for his guards.  He did not need to.  He knew what came next.  

                The van exited on Route 11 and proceeded into a bucolic stretch of Vermont.  There was no other traffic on the road.  Lake Champlaign was nearby, and the professor commented that it was pretty.  

                "Yeah, it is," one of the guards agreed desultorily.  He consulted his clipboard.  "Okay," he said to the guard behind the wheel.  "Looks like Route Eleven runs inna 89.  Then it's 89 all the way down."  

                Unfortunately for the guard, the van in question would never reach the Interstate.  As it drove along through the quiet night towards the goal it would never reach, it also drove closer to Susana Alvarez Lecter.  

                Susana was hidden back in the tree line.  She was too far back from the road to be seen.  She could see them, however.   She owed this ability not to any sort of superhuman ability, even though there were those who believed Susana to have some sort of superhuman powers.  Instead, there were two things that allowed her to see the van without being seen by the people inside.  One was a large set of Zeiss binoculars, which she currently had held up to her eyes.  The other was a large, fat telescopic sight mounted atop the rifle in her gloved right hand.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter was her father's daughter.  Had anyone suggested that to her she would have wholeheartedly agreed.  But she was not only Hannibal Lecter's daughter.  She was also Clarice Starling's daughter, and her knowledge of firearms stemmed from her mother.  Clarice Starling had bequeathed her shooter's eye to her daughter and encouraged her to practice in her youth.  Mostly, Susana knew pistols, but rifles were hardly alien to her, as they had been reasonably familiar to Clarice in her FBI years.  

                Once she had arrived in Plattsburgh the day before, Susana had perused the local want ads for a rifle for sale.  Conveniently, private sales of rifles or shotguns in New York State required no permits at all, and it had been easy to play a fumbling housewife intending to buy it for her husband.  The rifle was a plain Winchester chambered for 30.06, a hard-hitting round.  Susana knew that it would have the power to do what she wanted it to.  She'd sighted it in yesterday, and she was confident it would shoot.

                Susana was wearing the uniform of a Vermont state trooper.  Parked back in the woods was a matching state trooper cruiser.  Just beyond the cruiser was the trooper himself, lying in a ditch.   She'd found him poaching for speeders at the border.  The uniform was a bit too big for her, but that was OK.  It wouldn't be used for long.   Just long enough to free and then spirit away the professor.  She looked forward to meeting him.  They'd been corresponding for a long time.  

                She was lying on a mat she had bought in a Wal-Mart some sixty miles away.  As the van drew closer Susana put down the binoculars and lifted the rifle to her eye.    She'd picked a nice, deserted stretch of road convenient for her to pull off with the cruiser.  Their switch car was parked further down the road; the guards had probably seen it and assumed it was either broken down or an early-morning fisherman.  

                There was something in this she found amusing.  She'd known from the moment she seriously began considering Professor Creed as a potential partner that she could not break him out of a maximum-security prison.  It would have been well nigh impossible even for someone who wasn't a wanted killer in her own right.  But in a van driving through a nice rural area in the middle of the night – well, that would be easy.  Two guards to take out and he was free.  

                She could have tried to get him in that van herself.  She had enough money and could have doubtlessly gotten a judge somewhere, somehow, to pull Professor Creed out for a deposition or something. But there was something so fitting in having Lisa be the one to do her dirty work for her.  The fact that the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit had become her unwitting accomplices pleased her to no end.  She found herself wondering if Lisa would be the one to realize that she had masterminded this whole thing.  But then again, she reminded herself, she had to spring him and get away before she could call herself a mastermind. 

                The van looked to be the size of an aircraft carrier through the bright scope.  Susana raised the rifle and tracked along the van.  She could see the two guards driving and flitted back and forth with the sight.  Between and behind them, she could see a pale face separated by bars, and a smile crossed her lips.  

                The guard behind the wheel was a pretty big guy, and his head took up a lot of the sight.  Susana settled the crosshairs just below his nose, where a patchy moustache was valiantly struggling.  She took a deep breath and held it.  Then she squeezed the trigger.  A flat report echoed across the field.  

                Susana grabbed the bolt and worked it, catching the shell expertly in her free hand.  She slipped it into her pocket.  Then she pointed the rifle at the chrome grill of the van and fired a second shot.   The van had already begun to slew across the country road, its driver being newly dead.  When the second bullet struck the engine block, it cracked.  The van swerved across the road.  Susana thought it was heading for the ditch.  Just to be sure, she pumped a third bullet into the tire.  Sure enough, the van completed its turn into the ditch, driven by a last few firing neurons in the brains of the driver – well, those brains that weren't splattered across the headrest, anyway.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter arose and checked her pockets.  There were the three spent shells.  Good.  She grabbed up the mat and the rifle and jogged back to the cruiser.  It took only a moment to stow the rifle and mat in the passenger seat of the car.  The powerful engine of the cruiser revved and she dropped it into gear.  

                It took only a moment or two to reach the road, and then to the fallen prison van.  Susana put on the cruiser's lights and got out of the car quickly.  She took the pistol out of the holster on her belt and adopted a frightened expression.  The guard in the passenger seat gave her a panicky look.  

                "What the hell happened?"  Susana hissed.  

                "I dunno…he just…we're transporting a prisoner to Boston…federal court…then bang, somebody just shot us," the guard blubbered.  

                "Get him out," Susana demanded.  She reached for the chrome handle of the guard's door and tried to open it.  

                "No, wait…he's a death row prisoner…we gotta….,"  the guard continued, his eyes wide. 

                "Listen," Susana said.  "There is _someone _out there with a rifle and right now I feel like I've got a bullseye painted on the back of my head.  Now listen to me.  I want you to get your prisoner out of there _now _and put him in the back of my cruiser.  Once he's secure we're getting the hell out of here."  

                The guard nodded dumbly, panicking and eyes wide.  He fumbled around for a bit in the van.  It was more difficult than he expected, seeing that the van was on its side and what was up was now to the right.  But he fumbled with his keys and unlocked Professor Creed's leg irons and belly chain.  

                "N-now, listen up, Creed," he said in a semblance of his normal gruff bully-boy tone.  "That state trooper's gonna have her gun out.  You mind your manners and let me cuff you once we're out."  

                "Of course," Professor Creed said blithely from where he was lying on the window.  

                The van rumbled open.  Susana drew her pistol and aimed it at the top of the van.  Professor Creed emerged, blinking at the light.  His eyes touched Susana's.  They both smiled.  There was a metal _thunk _as the professor pulled his body out onto the side of the van.  He slid down with a brief sound, holding his handcuffed hands in front of him.  

                The guard's head appeared above the open sliding door of the overturned van.  

                "You got him?"  he asked Susana.  

                "I sure do," Susana Alvarez Lecter agreed.  

                The guard pulled himself out of the van and approached Professor Creed, holding the belly chain and leg irons.  

                "Now you behave," he admonished the other man.  He squatted to chain the professor's ankles again.  He had barely enough time to feel the trooper's pistol pressed into his ear, but he did not hear the sharp report of the pistol.  Instead, he simply died on his knees, preparing to chain a killer.  

                Susana bent down and took the guard's gun, extra loads, pepper spray, and handcuff key.  She handed the key to him and stuffed the rest in the pockets of his jacket.  He simply grinned at her in the early Vermont morning.  

                "You're even more beautiful than you described yourself," he said gently.  

                Susana smiled, letting the compliment warm her.  But then the stern voice of her mother spoke up in her.  _Never screw around on an op.  Get the job done.  _

"Thank you," she said.  "Now let's get out of here."  She grabbed his arm as the guards had and led him to the 

                She led him to the car and put him in the back, as if she actually was a police officer.  Professor Creed gave her a quizzical look as she threw herself behind the wheel.  The cruiser's rear wheels spun, spitting gravel as they raced down the road.  

                It took the professor only a minute or so to unlock his handcuffs.  Once he did, he noticed that there was a heavy hunting jacket and a pair of jeans folded neatly on the seat next to him.  Not needing to be told, Professor Creed shucked out of his jacket and pants in favor of the clothing Susana had provided him.  

                Susana pulled onto the grass and drove a few hundred feet down to the shores of the lake.  There, she told Professor Creed to leave the sports jacket, slacks, and handcuffs.  She also threw a piece of paper into the air on which she had scribbled the phone number of a hotel in Montreal.   Once he'd left them there, she headed back to the road and drove down to the switch car.  

                It wasn't much – a fifteen-year-old sedan.  It was well maintained, but the small pockets of rust on the body made it seem somehow dilapidated.  Susana let him out of the back seat and gestured for him to take the wheel.  From beside her on the cruiser's seat, she picked up a long denim jumper and a cardigan sweater.  She put on the jumper over the police uniform and sat down in the passenger seat.  It took only a moment or two to stow the rifle and the mat in the trunk.  The professor took the wheel.  It had been years since he last drove a car, but he was able to get the car started and moving in short order.

                "Go back the way we came," she told him.  "Don't speed."  

                "We're going _back?" _Professor Creed asked with some surprise.  

                "Exactly where they won't expect us to be looking.  They'll think you're heading for Quebec."  

                "That would be a sensible option for those in our situation," the professor observed.  

                "It would, but there are two problems with it," Susana said, shucking the pants of her uniform.  Under it she wore dark blue tights.  The pants went in a duffle bag at her feet.  She exchanged the clodhopper cop shoes for simple slip-ons.  "First , I'm already wanted in Canada.  Old boyfriend thing, you know.  Second, that's what they'll think you're going to do.   I have a motel room all ready in Plattsburgh for the morning."  

                As the professor drove, Susana managed to slip out of the uniform shirt as well.  She kept the pistol close enough where she could get it.  This was the chancy part; once they were back in Plattsburgh it would be easy.     

                Professor Creed drove close to the limit, so as to avoid the attention of traffic police.  Susana was tense as they drove, her fingers never far from the butt of the pistol.  From the glove compartment she produced a Bearcat scanner and turned it on, listening for news of the escape.  She'd meant for this to go as quietly as possible.  Pyrotechnics were fun occasionally, but she wanted to get away more than she wanted to teach the law enforcement community a lesson.  

                It took forty-five minutes to make it back to Plattsburgh.  Professor Creed glanced nervously west as he drove.  He was well aware that he was only fourteen miles from the prison in which he had been held for the past six years.  Susana directed him to pull off the Interstate and into the parking lot of a motel conveniently close to the highway.  From the inexpensive purse next to her she produced a motel room key.  

                Once they were safely ensconced in the motel room, Susana relaxed.  Provided no one had seen them – and Susana didn't think they had – their odds of getting away would be much better.  The motel room itself was quite anonymous – a bed, a table and chairs, and a rather ugly and anonymous print on the wall. A laptop computer on the table lorded over its subjects:  a color printer and a small laminator.  There were several plastic bags on the bed.  Some were medical supplies, and Professor Creed looked at those curiously.  Another had a drugstore logo on it, and it was this one that Susana chose.  She handed it to him.  He plucked a cardboard box from inside and stared at it. 

                "Maxi Blonde Hair Lightener Kit," he read aloud dubiously.  

                Susana grinned.  "Ladies prefer blondes, you know.  Now go on in the bathroom.  Make sure to do your eyebrows too, so they match.  It'll wash out after a few shampoos, but it'll work."  

                While Professor Creed set about dying his hair blonde, Susana changed her own clothing.  In lieu of the country-girl denim jumper, she donned an expensive blue suit with a knee-length skirt.  An expensive blonde wig made of real human hair changed her hair color and style.  It would be fine for the car.   She swapped the blue tights for proper businesslike nylons and the slip-ons for proper businesslike pumps.   The pistol went into a Prada purse that she left on the table.  She sat down to wait.   She plugged an earphone into the Bearcat and listened with one ear while she waited.  

                There was nothing yet.  The stretch Susana had chosen in which to kill the guards and set him free was quite deserted.  Someone would find it eventually.  Susana checked her watch and discovered that it was almost five in the morning.  With a bit of luck, they'd be able to get on the road shortly.  Police would notice traffic at five, but at six there would be more traffic.  

                It took the professor rather longer than it would have taken Susana, as he was not familiar with cosmetics or hair coloring.   He came out with his hair an attractive shade of blonde, however, and his eyebrows were correctly colored as well.  Susana smiled and handed him a pair of black-tinted contact lenses.  They hid his tiny pupils quite easily, blending everything into a shade of black.  A pair of wire-framed spectacles gave him an intellectual air.  

                After that, Susana gave him a suit bag containing a shirt, tie, and a fine blue suit.  He smiled at the sight of it and took it into the bathroom to change.  Professor Creed did not dress up as often as Hannibal Lecter had, but he did enjoy it now and then.  And the suit was quite beautifully cut, although it was not tailored to fit him, as Susana had only been able to provide approximate measurements.  A pair of shiny wing tips, redolent of new leather, finished off the ensemble.  When he returned, you might have mistaken him for a highly placed executive, or an attorney, but certainly not an escaped convict.  

                Susana looked him up and down and smiled.  He cleaned up nicely.  She took a digital camera from her bag and told him to stand against the wall.  It took only a few moments to take his picture.  Once his picture had been taken, it was quite easy to print it out to the proper size and slip it into the identity document she had ready for him.  Susana had turned on the laminator, an item available in any Target or Wal-Mart for thirty dollars, before she left, and it was already warm.  In a few minutes Professor Creed had identity documents.  The Massachusetts driver's license would pass any check that a police officer might want to run.  The passport was an excellent Brazilian forgery, but any immigration official in the world would have been fooled.  He took that and dropped it into the inner jacket pocket of the suit, enjoying the slick feel of the smooth lining.  The ID went into a fine black leather wallet she had picked up for him in Italy before she left.  He noticed she had already put ten twenty-dollar bills into it, so that he would have cash for the trip.

                "Okay," Susana said, and stood up.  Her tone was still businesslike and disciplined.  "You look good.  Now let's have some coffee."  

                Professor Creed dropped his arms to her shoulders and smiled at her.  He dropped his lips to hers, realizing what he owed this woman.  A scant two hours ago he'd been a helpless, shackled prisoner.  Now, he was wearing a fine suit and had everything he might need to escape.  She was, truly, a capable woman.  A suitable mate for him.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter stiffened at first when his face dropped to meet hers.   She was still thinking in the rules of operational security, as her mother had once taught her.  Just as Clarice Starling would have probably shot Hannibal Lecter had he tried to kiss her in the middle of the Feliciana Fish Market raid, Susana did not expect her professor to kiss her and she tried to pull away.

                But once she realized what he was doing, and that they were almost away, she relaxed a bit and allowed herself to respond.  Her body became more pliant in Professor Creed's arms and she leaned up towards him.  Even despite her heels, the professor was still significantly taller than she.  But the discipline Clarice Starling had taught her was not completely overcome.  She broke the kiss and stepped back.  

                "Susana, thank you," Professor Thomas Creed said calmly.  "For all of this.  Everything."  

                "You're quite welcome.  Now let's have some coffee and we'll hit the road around six."  She indicated a coffee machine sitting on the nightstand next to the television set.   He turned on the TV and lowered the volume so it could barely be heard.  It took Professor Creed a few moments to figure out how to work the coffee machine, as the maximum-security unit he had lived on until today did not allow its inmates such niceties.  The smell of the coffee filled the room.  It was a gourmet blend Susana had purchased in Philadelphia before driving up to Plattsburgh, and he thought it would be a welcome experience.  He was quite hungry to take in the charms and pleasures that the world might have to offer, even the charms and pleasures that the anonymous, dull little motel room possessed.  

                Once it was ready, Professor Creed poured the coffee, mindful not to spill on the snowy-white shirt, the red slickness of his silk tie, or the blue wool of his suit jacket.  Susana smelled the brew and closed her eyes in pleasure.  For Professor Creed, the coffee was wonderfully strong, wonderfully hot, a paroxysm of pleasure.  A thousand leagues beyond the weak and lukewarm brew he had been given in prison.  He wondered about sugar and saw it nearby.  For a moment he was torn.  With sugar or without?  He did not want to miss the taste of the coffee either way.  He would have two cups, he decided.  The first would be without sugar and the next with it.  There was no creamer to be had, as Susana preferred her coffee black with sugar.   

                "What do you have planned now?" Professor Creed asked easily.  It was a simple question, and one that would go unnoticed in the event someone in the next room overheard it.  

                Susana took another sip of coffee.  "We get out of here," she said calmly and quietly.  "Boston, actually."  

                Professor Creed's eyes widened.  "Boston? Why Boston?  It's teeming with FBI, with the whole Bludgeon Man investigation."  

                "Because," Susana said, "that's exactly where they won't expect us to be.  They'll be poking around Montreal looking for us there.  That and they may shut down I-89, if they think you went that route."  

                "We could have gone there," Professor Creed observed.  "I speak some French, although I read it better.  And you obviously speak French."  

                "Parisian French.  They'd understand me but I'd stick out like an Englishman in New York City."   Susana grinned and took another pull at the coffee.  "No, we're going to Boston and we're going to hide out there.  I want to do some work on your face.  We're not going to go out and paint the town red, you know.  I have a nice suite at the Park Plaza reserved, we'll simply lie low in the suite until we get out of here."  

                Professor Creed's eyes were much less spooky but no less powerful for being hidden behind the contact lenses.  They met Susana's.  Susana did not look away, but simply tilted her head, looked interested, and locked her eyes back on his own.  For a moment it seemed there was an invisible token between the two, pushed back and forth by the forces of their wills, neither willing to yield.  But there was an air of amusement between these two highly dangerous people, rather than real rivalry.  

                Very carefully, very calmly, as if speaking to a student he had caught toilet-papering school property (as indeed he once had), Professor Thomas Creed said, "You mean to have some fun with your cousin, don't you?"  

                Susana grinned.  "I intend…to help my cousin, actually."  

                "After tormenting her," Professor Creed observed judiciously.  

                "I'm entitled to _some_ fun on this trip, aren't I?" Susana asked archly.   "And don't tell me _you _didn't enjoy watching her bounce around once she realized you actually knew who the Bludgeon Man was.  She gets so _very _agitated at the idea of the bad guy getting away.  Excitable little blonde thing, isn't she?"  

                "Why do you care about the Bludgeon Man, anyway?"  Professor Creed asked.  

                Susana chuckled.  "I finish what I start," she said cryptically.  

                When their coffee had been finished, they rose.  With two of them, it took very little time to break down and pack what equipment was in the hotel room.  The computer setup Susana had fit easily into a nice attaché case.  The rifle took a few minutes to disassemble, and after that it too fit nicely into a duffle bag.  Professor Creed was able to get most of the bags, as they were plastic and it was easy to carry them all.  

                Outside, Susana walked past the down-at-the-heels sedan as if she had never seen it before.  Like the rifle, she had bought it used in Plattsburgh.  She'd promised the original owner to mail the plates back in a week.  That did bother her a bit, but she didn't have much choice.  The sedan would rot here until such time as the police found it.  

                Instead, she walked across the parking lot to a sporty BMW bearing New York plates.  From her purse she took a remote control and unlocked the doors.  After Professor Creed put the equipment in the trunk, she gave him the keys and told him where to go.  

                In her ear, the earphone buzzed with police.  

                "10-Alpha, I'm on the scene with the MVA.  It's a federal marshal's van.  Two bodies inside.  Looks like someone shot up the van.  Looks like they were transporting a prisoner to Boston.  No sign of the prisoner.  We need the state down here with a homicide unit, now."  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter tensed, forcing herself to remember she was forty miles away.  

                "Go code," the dispatcher replied tersely.  Susana knew what that meant; any further transmissions would be encoded, so that people with scanners could not eavesdrop.  It also meant it was time to get out of town as quickly as possible.  

                The Vermont authorities would probably be prowling Interstate 89, since it was only a few miles from the scene of the escape.  They would probably be bright enough to call in the New York authorities too, since the border was so close.   Probably the Surete du Quebec, too, since Professor Creed's clothing and handcuffs had been dumped by the lake.  The image of Professor Creed running through the hinterlands of Quebec in his skivvies, stealing clothes from a clothesline and greeting shocked housewives with a clumsy _bonjour _made her grin.  

                But they wouldn't shut down the entire state of New York, and the sooner they were moving and the farther away they got, the better.  Professor Creed stalled the BMW out once backing it out of the parking space. It had been years since he last drove a manual shift, but it came back to him quite quickly and Susana decided not to tease him about it.  

                The gleaming black BMW was luxuriant inside and had plenty of performance.  It wasn't quite what she usually drove, but it would certainly do, and Susana valued inconspicuousness this time around.   Susana adjusted the Bearcat scanner and tried to pick up some transmissions that hadn't gone to code.  

                The authorities were competent, despite their late start.  What had begun when a sheriff's deputy located an overturned van in a ditch in rural Vermont swiftly grew larger and larger.  The US Marshals, Vermont state authorities, New York state authorities, and Quebec provincial authorities were all notified.  Like a beacon, the scene of the escape summoned more and more police officers.  Where Susana Alvarez Lecter had shot two federal marshals and then taken their prisoner for her own was now bathed in flickering red lights and surrounded by the metallic babble of police radios.  They assembled photographs of Professor Creed and swiftly realized he had an unknown accomplice.  

                Meanwhile, forty miles away, a black BMW picked up Interstate 87 and blended into traffic.  It did not speed nor did it stop.  It headed down the highway calmly at sixty-five for two and a half hours, where it met the large east-west artery of the Thruway.  By now, there was a great deal more traffic on the highway and the BMW went completely unnoticed.  It headed east. 


	7. Coupling Up

                _Here we are, a long chapter in which our couples get to know each a little better.  And Lisa does something unexpected…_

The BMW headed east, moving at the speed of traffic.  Professor Creed did not want to be stopped by a police officer.  The gas tank was full, and neither of them particularly wanted to stop while on the road.  All it would take would be some lucky cop noticing them.  Both Creed and Susana were disguised quite well, but there was no sense in taking chances.  

                Now that they'd picked up a Mass Pike toll ticket, Professor Creed relaxed a bit and then tensed nervously.  

                "You've done quite a bit for me, Susana," he began.  "I do have something for you, actually."  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter looked curiously at him from the passenger seat, finally beginning to relax herself now that they had gotten this far unmolested.  The escape scene was in Vermont.  They might be smart enough to look in New York.  But now they were in Massachusetts.  

                Professor Creed reached into his suit pocket and extracted a small bundle wrapped in blue denim cloth.  He handed it to Susana.  She tilted her head curiously and unwrapped the bundle to reveal a ring.  There was no stone.  Instead, graven around the band were the words _Gaol Dilseachd Cairdeas _and a Celtic knot next to the third word.  Susana's face lit up with pleasant surprise.  

                "We're both of Gaelic descent," Professor Creed explained.  "You're Scotch-Irish through your mother, I believe.  My mother's family hailed originally from the Orkney Isles.  It's a Gaelic friendship ring, given as a sign of…regard."  

                "It's beautiful," Susana said.  "Thank you.  Where did you get it?"  She slipped it on her finger.  

                Professor Creed took a deep breath.  "I made it, actually," he said simply.  

                There are those things in life that are beautiful because they were created with the best raw materials and built by masters at their craft.  There are others that come by their beauty for the sheer work and effort that have been put into it.  The ring was one of the latter.  

                Professor Creed's world at the prison had been very dull and dark.  Susana's letters and occasional small gifts had meant a great deal to him.  Perhaps six months ago, the plumbing in his cell required work.  They had locked him in another, empty cell for almost an entire day without a single thing to occupy his mind.  When he'd returned, he had been surprised to find a brass plumbing valve left behind by the maintenance staff.  It had about as fat as a cigar and as long as his thumb.  It had been hexagonal and threaded on the inside.  It was also rather bright and shiny, much more so than anything else in the dark and depressive world of death row.  

                In any prison, there is a certain amount of trading that occurs between the guards and the inmates, and the Unit for Condemned Persons was not an exception.  One of the guards had a teenage son who had a paper coming up for a high-school philosophy class.  The guard wanted his son to get good grades in order to get a scholarship.  Professor Creed wanted some tools to work with.  So the deal was struck.   Professor Creed wrote the paper and got what he wanted:  some rough sandpaper and a sanding block.   These were contraband, of course, as if Professor Creed might sand his way through the wall of his cell and escape.  But he got it and set to his task with some pleasure.

                He'd known that eventually it would be discovered, and so he'd worked as quickly as he could.  It took him a week to sand down one end of the valve into the ring he had seen in it.  It had taken many hours.  Once that had been done, Professor Creed had taken the lever off a broken set of fingernail clippers and etched the Gaelic words and knotwork into the brass.  _That _had taken months.  It was for her, and so he had been painstakingly careful in the work he did.

  But he thought it apropos; Susana had brought some brightness into his dull and ugly world, and so he had given her this chance bit of brightness that he had come up with.  He'd torn off a strip of his prison jumpsuit in order to have a polishing cloth.  Eventually, a cell shakedown had turned up his sanding block and sandpaper and they'd taken that.  It was annoying, but to be expected.  The ring, however, remained in his possession until today, when he was able to give it to her.  He'd been working on a handcuff key when they got it, and that had been aggravating.  Fortunately, they merely took away his recreation for a month.  He'd missed that, but the sacrifice had been well worth it.

                It wasn't much.  He was uncomfortably aware of that.  But she seemed to like it and didn't care of its origins.  That made him feel better.  

                "I did once make preparations in case I ever became a fugitive," Professor Creed said calmly.  "I have money and identification hidden in the basement of my vacation home."  

                Susana pursed her lips. "I don't think it's a good idea," she said slowly.  "They may have people posted there, just in case."  

                "The local police consists of six men," he said.  

                "There's more than that in the FBI," Susana explained.  "Don't worry about the money, Thomas. I've got more than enough for both of us."   

                "I know," Professor Thomas Creed acknowledged, "but I do want to contribute what I have."  

                "Maybe later," Susana said.  "Thomas, don't let it bother you.  It certainly doesn't bother me.  If I'd wanted a rich man I'd have gotten one.  For now, let's just get to Boston."  

                Satisfied with that, the BMW sped on towards its destination.  

                …

                Lisa Starling slept peacefully in her hotel room.  She was warm and safe under the covers.  It had been her first good night's sleep since this whole thing with the Bludgeon Man began.  Her legs shifted under the covers as she slumbered peacefully.  

                Her sleep was interrupted by a loud banging on her door.  Lisa grumbled and pulled the pillow over her head, hoping that whoever was there would go away.  That hope proved to be in vain.   

                "Agent Staahling!"  The voice was male, loud, and commanding.  Lisa grunted and slid out of bed.  She grabbed her robe from where it hung on the closet bar and pulled it on.  Rubbing her eyes, she walked over to the door and peeked through the peephole.  

                She was rewarded with a fishy-eyed view of three people.  Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan, Agent Krause from her own task force, and another blonde woman she did not recognize.  She blinked curiously and opened the door halfway.  

                "What are you doing here?" she asked.  

                "Securing the area," Sullivan answered.  "Can you open the door?  I'm sorry we hadda wake you up like this."  

                Lisa glanced at the clock.  "It's OK…it's just a little early.  What brings you here at six in the morning?"  

                He stepped inside and looked around.  With the door open, Lisa could see a few uniformed Boston cops looking quite serious.  A look of alarm crossed her face.  

                "So are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked.  "Professor Creed should be getting here in about an hour."    

                   Agent Krause sighed. 

                 "Chief Starling," she said quietly, as if her news might cause Lisa to freak out and become hysterical, "Professor Creed has escaped."

                A finger of nausea tickled Lisa's stomach and the color fell from her cheeks.  

                "He…he _what?"  _

"There was an accident just over the border in Vermont," Agent Krause explained.  "They found the van overturned in a ditch.  The marshals were found dead.  Professor Creed was nowhere to be found.  They're still looking." 

                Lisa Starling swallowed.  "And you think he might be coming after me."  

                Silence reigned for a moment or two in the room.  Lieutenant Sullivan interjected.  

                "We don't _know _that.  Agent Krause told me about it.  But it's better not to take chances."  

                Agent Krause took over.  "Chief Kenton called me from Washington.  He tried to reach you but your cell must've been off."  She sighed.  "There's more, though.  The marshals were shot.  The van was shot up.  Somebody helped him, Chief Starling.  Someone was waiting for them.  He had help."  

                Lisa Starling's eyes widened and she forced herself to calm down.  

                "All right," she said.  "Okay.  They'll find him."  

                For a moment she reeled, unable to take it what had just happened.  Someone had known Professor Creed was going to be in that van, driving along in the Vermont night.  Any other night would have begun and ended with Professor Creed safely locked away in his maximum-security cell.  And she, Lisa Starling, had put him in that van.  Now two federal marshals were dead and a dangerous killer was free to roam the earth and claim new victims.  

                Someone had played her for a fool. 

                The name of her cousin flashed instantly across her brain.  But no, that couldn't be.  Susana was living quietly in France. She hadn't killed anyone in years.  Had to be somebody else.  

                "What do we know?" she asked quietly.  

                "They found a dead state trooper in the woods," Krause said.  "The cruiser was parked a few miles north.  Right near the lake.  Other than that…nothing."  

                "He won't come after me," Lisa said slowly.  "I…I'm the furthest thing from his mind right now.  No way."  

                "Well, let's let you get dressed," Jason Sullivan said, calling attention to the fact that she was in her bathrobe.  "Then I got an armed escort downstairs to take you to work."  He introduced the blonde woman standing beside him.  "This is Detective Regan, she'll take your place in the hotel room after work.  If Creed pops in he'll get a surprise.  We'll have some boys waiting for him. I'm working on getting a place for you to crash."  

                The three stepped out, and Lisa jumped in the shower and threw on a suit as quickly as she could.  She let them back in as she was buckling her holster on and checking her Glock.  There was an unpleasant funereal air in the room.  

                "Okay," she said.  "If you want to drive me to work, fine.  Let me get a few things."  

                She gathered up the case files she had and put them in her briefcase.  A small party of Boston officers followed her down to her rental car.  Behind it was an idling Boston cruiser.  Lisa gripped the wheel until her knuckles began to cramp.  

                Who had done this?  Who would've wanted to set Creed free?  There _had _to be some sort of explanation for this.  There was a sick feeling of dread in her stomach.  Creed was out.  He was _out.  _And she had helped him, however unwittingly.  

                Idly she wondered if he would show up, try and get his dinner at Legal Sea Foods or put his feet in the freaking Atlantic like he'd said he wanted to do.  Probably not, not if the guy had an ounce of brains in his head.  Smartest thing for him to do would be find a big city and lie low.  And Professor Creed was frightfully smart.  

                _I helped set him free.  I helped set him free.  _The thought nagged at her.  She kept waiting for the cruiser behind her to flare its lights and shove her in the back.  _Lisa Starling, you're under arrest as an accessory to felonious escape.  Please come with me.  _  No, they wouldn't do that; Lisa hadn't done anything illegal.  She'd just been played like a chess piece. 

                The FBI's field office was guarded by Boston police officers when she arrived.  Lisa found that made her feel nervous instead of safe.  It was like the Boston field office was being taken over or something.  But no, that was being silly; they were just trying to help.  

                Jason Sullivan extracted his frame from the cruiser that had followed her here.  He pointed at the cops guarding the FBI's office door and grinned.  

                "You've done quite a job," Lisa said.  

                "Ah, I just made a couple of phone calls," he grinned.  "We're all cops, we know the score, and we stick by our own."  

                "I'm FBI.  We can take care of ourselves."  

                Jason Sullivan shook his head.  "This is my city.  Long as you're in it, making sure you're safe is our responsibility."  His tone lost its jocularity.  He seemed quite serious about it.  "Besides, it's a lot easier to surround this place with Boston PD than it would be to truck in FBI from somewhere else.  We're all on the same side here, Chief Starling."    

                "All right," Lisa said, vaguely flattered.  "So what's this about finding somewhere for me to crash?"  

                "Working on it.  I'd rather leave Detective Regan in your room, along with a few boys from our SWAT team.  Safer that way."  

                Lisa got to the office the FBI field office had given her and sat down.  For a moment she was quite nervous and afraid.  But no, Professor Creed was likely hiding out somewhere.  Frightened, cold, and figuring out his next move.  He _wasn't _heading to Boston to off her, she knew that.  

                She picked up the phone and dialed the number for Chief Kenton, her boss at Behavioral Sciences.  He picked up after a few rings.  

                "Kenton, it's Starling," she said.  "What the _hell _is going on?  I just got word that Creed escaped and now the field office here is crawling with Boston boys.  It's like a coup or something."  

                Kenton sounded tired.  "Yeah," he said.  "I talked to the point man on Boston PD.  Sullivan.  You weren't answering your cell."  

                "It was charging," Lisa said. 

                "I'm not mad, Starling.  Just taking every precaution quick as I could.  I know you're beating yourself up on the Bludgeon Man investigation."  

                "So what have we heard?"  

                "Escape took place in some little hunk of nowhere up in Vermont.  You can hit the reports we're getting in from East Alburg as soon as they come in, you're on the same network.  It's in a folder called CREEDESCAPE."  He sighed.  "Basically, someone knew the van was coming.  They carried this off with military precision.  Those marshals were like a couple of turkeys in a turkey shoot.  They never had a chance.  High-powered rifle, back in the tree line, took out the van and the driver.  The second guy was shot with a pistol at close range.  The UNSUB must've forced him to get Creed out of the van.  We've got footprints matching Creed's shoes and the leg irons right there.  The marshal was shot while trying to shackle Creed.  Probably took the shackles off to get him out."  

                Lisa's eyes narrowed.  How had that happened?  It didn't make sense.  If the UNSUB had been right there, the marshal would've been defending himself, not trying to shackle Creed.   Wait a minute…dead state trooper.  The UNSUB had taken the uniform and put it on.  The marshal thought he was dealing with an ally.  

                _Now who do you know who's passed as a police officer before?  _a little voice asked, and she forced it away. She wasn't going to see her cousin behind every crime in the country. Nope, Susana was back in Paris, raising her kid and being a surgeon and eating croissants and stuff like that.  

                But dammit, it was _there.  _Lisa had always divided her cousin's murders into two types:  ends in themselves and means-to-an-end murders.  Murders she committed as ends in themselves were usually as gory as any, and Susana shared her father's devilish imagination when it came to how horrible she could be.  But when Susana was killing someone as a means to an end, she did so often with military precision, putting them down quick and dirty and going about her business.   And a great deal of Susana's means-to-an-end murders had been law enforcement officers.  The reason was perfectly understandable:  law enforcement officers were a threat to Susana.   And if she'd wanted to free Creed, the marshals would've been a threat to her.  And Susana had passed as law enforcement before – passed as _her _before, in her war against Behavioral Sciences four years ago.  

                _It's not Susana, _she told herself.   _Susana's retired.  She and I have an understanding.  She stays retired and I let her stay free.  _

Even as she told herself that, she knew it wasn't true.  Lisa could give up Susana's whereabouts anytime she wanted.  But she knew perfectly well how Susana would respond.  Lisa didn't let Susana stay free; Lisa was _forced _to let Susana stay free.  She could only fool herself so long.

                Plus, the peace between the two women had held for four years.  There was no reason at all for Susana to break it now.  Lisa didn't want her to break it.  Life would be a lot more painful for both of them if it did.  Surely Susana had to know what would happen if she was caught in the United States again.  That had to be enough.  

                "I want to see the reports," she said.  "I'll have a look and tell you what I think."  

                "Starling, look.  I know you feel responsible.  But your job is the Bludgeon Man.  Not Creed.  Look, someone took advantage of a weak point.  We'll catch them.  Creed and the UNSUB both."  

                "Any leads?"  

                "We're working on it, Starling.  You catch the Bludgeon Man.  No one holds you responsible for this.  Including me."  

                It was nice to hear, but _Lisa _held herself responsible.  Professor Creed was free, and free because she had pulled him out of his secure prison cell in order to testify.  She had to do _something.  _

The rest of the day went calmly.  Lisa's task force still had their job to do, which was to catch the Bludgeon Man.  So Lisa ran her meetings and reviewed the work of her agents.  Several times during the day, she would find her mind turning to Susana or Professor Creed, and she had to force herself to pay attention to what was going on.  

                _Good Lord, _she found herself thinking.  _If the two of them got together there'd be a bloodbath.  _

Unaware that the two of them were indeed together and heading towards her, she tried to force her cousin and the murderous professor out of her mind.  It wasn't Susana.  Susana could have any man she wanted.  She didn't need to rescue convicted killers out of the backs of prison vans.   Susana was also no longer active as a killer.  That was the understanding.  

                But she couldn't shake the idea that her cousin had done something to do with this.  

                Eventually, six o'clock came.  Detective Regan, currently holed up in Lisa's hotel room along with several men from the Boston SWAT squad, had considerately packed up Lisa's things and had them sent to the FBI's field offices.  All Lisa needed was someplace to stay the night.  She hadn't expected to be kicked out of her own hotel room.  

                Jason Sullivan stuck his head in her office door as she was reviewing the depressingly familiar autopsy reports on Mary Morales.  Just as the others, she'd been drugged and horribly tortured.  According to the tox screen, the drugs had been enough to keep her from moving but hadn't blocked any of the pain.  Mary Morales had felt everything, every last horror and atrocity, until she'd finally died.  

                _Creed and Susana together would do a lot worse – _

_                Stop it, Lisa.  It isn't Susana. Nope, no way.  _

She smiled briefly at Sullivan.  "Hi," she said.  "What can I do for you, Lieutenant Sullivan?"  

                "Actually, it's what I can do for you, Chief Starling," he said, and grinned a toothy grin at her.  "You remember we moved Detective Regan into your room.  I have been making arrangements for you to have a place to crash."  

                "Okay,' Lisa said, grinning.  

                "I got two places for you.  One is a woman cop, she's got a studio apartment.   Little place but it's comfortable.  The other, if you like, is my place."  

                Lisa Starling raised her eyebrows.  Jason Sullivan smiled and displayed his palms.  

                "It's not like that," he said.  "I'll take the couch, that's fine.  It's just that I've got a fast Internet hookup.  Thought you might be able to get some work done, if you wanted."  

                That was a tempting offer.  She could get some work done, and maybe review the CREEDESCAPE folder too.  Besides, she'd rather not share a one-room apartment with a total stranger.  

                "Your place sounds okay," she said, smiling.    

                "Great," he said.  "I got my car waiting.  You can just leave yours here, unless you need it.  I'll drop you here in the morning."  

                "Quite a date," she riposted, grinning.  

                "Oh yeah.  I roll out the red carpet for the FBI."    

                Jason Sullivan's car was a late-model Mustang with leather seats.  Lisa was a car buff herself, and the Mustang pleased her:  nice leather seats, plenty of power in the engine, and good lateral acceleration.  He drove quickly, the way a man with effective immunity to traffic tickets will.  

                "Nice car," she said.  

                "Thanks," he grinned.  

                Some women might have been put off by the way he screeched around corners.  Lisa Starling was not.  Both of them liked to drive.  Perhaps ten minutes later, they arrived at an apartment building.  He pulled into a parking space and grabbed her bag to carry it upstairs.  

                Jason Sullivan's apartment was simple and neat.  There were three numbers on the door representing his apartment number 317.  The three drooped desultorily.  But inside, the apartment was astringently neat.  The couch was some years old, but clean and comfortable.  In one corner, a large stereo loomed.  In another, a PC with a large monitor sat waiting.  Sullivan carried her bag into the bedroom.   

                "So," he said calmly, "You hungry?  I got some boys coming by to stand guard.  They'll pick up whatever you want."  

                Lisa gave him a slightly puzzled look.  "Some _boys?"  _

"Yep," he answered.  "I told them that some loony had escaped, and now he was hunting you.  I made a couple of phone calls.  Got all the agents on the FBI task force out of the hotel.  Some of them are staying with regular Boston FBI.  Others I got put up with Boston cops.  We got Boston cops in that whole block of hotel rooms now."  He chuckled.  "If your professor comes and pays a visit he'll get a hell of a surprise.  Must be thirty cops hanging out there."  

                A knock came at the door and he went to check it, drawing his weapon and keeping it along his thigh.  A bit nervous herself, Lisa reached over calmly for her own Glock holstered on her hip.  She put her hand on the butt but didn't draw it.  Carefully, he opened the door, leaving it on the chain.  His face brightened as he saw who was outside. 

                "It's OK," he said.  Entering the room was a swarthy Hispanic man in a jacket and tie.  Detective Sullivan shook his hand and escorted him into the room.  

                "Vic, this is Chief Starling from the FBI's profiler unit.  Chief Starling, this is Detective Victor Alvarez.  He's one of the detectives under me.  He's gonna stick around and keep guard."  

                "Hi," Detective Alvarez said in the same Bostonian accent.  

                _Alvarez. I get to be guarded by an Alvarez.  Why did it have to be Alvarez?  _Lisa thought.  But then again, Susana's birth surname _was _quite common.  Dr. Lecter had chosen it for its very ubiquity.  

                "Hi, Detective," Lisa smiled.  

                "Nice to meet you.  So who's this guy anyways, _capo_?"   The question was directed to Sullivan.  

                "That psycho killer who was in the news a couple years back.  You know, the guy who killed his students.  And had the skull on his desk."  

                "_Skull _on his desk?  Sick puppy."  

                Lisa chuckled.  "Actually, that's how they caught him," she added.  "It was common a couple hundred years ago for educated men to keep a skull on their desk to remind them of their own mortality."  

                "Still sounds sick to me," Detective Alvarez observed.  "I know plenty about that without needing to keep body parts on my desk."   

                Lisa shrugged.  "He was a college professor, and so he was able to get away with a certain amount, more than if he'd been, say, an office worker.  They just thought he was eccentric.   He told them the skull was on his desk for the same reason.  One of the victims had a gold tooth in the back of his mouth.  An agent in the field interviewing him noticed the skull had a gold tooth in the same place.  They got a warrant and ran the full dental records.  There was one of our victims.  With that, we got a search warrant for his home.  That's where we found…well…the rest."  

                Sullivan looked over.  "You mean you were on the team that caught Creed?"  

                Lisa smiled and nodded.  "I wasn't running things then.  But I was part of the team that caught him."  

                The two Boston detectives seemed interested.  "Were you there?"  asked Sullivan.  

                "Yes," Lisa said shortly.  Professor Creed's home wasn't her favorite memory.  Well, the living part of the house had been just fine.  Books all over the place.  It had been the room in his basement – the workroom, he'd called it – that was the worst.  To change the subject, she asked, "So what did he call you?  Coppo?"  

                Sullivan grinned.  

                 "_Capo,_" he said.  "My nickname.  Bit of a story."  

                Lisa shrugged, hoping to evade discussing Creed any more.  

                "Okay.  It's from when I first started on the force."  He grinned sheepishly.  "See, my family's always been cops.  Like fifth generation cops.  I got uncles and cousins all over the force.  So here I am, right?  I'm like twenty-two, fresh out of the Academy, first day on the job.  I'm raring to go.  They put me in this squad car with this guy who's got like fifteen years in.  He lets me drive.  I pulled over this Cadillac for blowing a red light.  Planning on lecturing the guy and letting him go.  Anyways, guy smells like booze, so I field-test him.  He fails the field tests.  So I cuff the guy, tell him he's under arrest for DWI.  He offers me fifty bucks to let him go.  I say no way, put your cash away before I arrest you for attempted bribery.    Bring the guy back and tell my partner what we're doing.  His eyes go waaaay wide.  So I put the guy in the back and bring him down to the station."  He chuckled and shook his head.  

                "I run the guy's record and _voooom, _this list a mile long comes out of the computer.  Guy was part of the Mob.  High-ranking guy, _capo _of a local family.  He's being all nice but doesn't get why I didn't take the money.  So I take my arrested mobster and stick him in the holding cell.  _Everybody _in the station is sort of staring.  The sergeant grabs me, he says 'Hey, you know who you just arrested?'  I says, 'Sure, his name's Gil Bilotti and I popped him for DWI.'  Sarge says 'Yeah, they're gonna be watching you. First day and you bring in a mob _capo_.'"  He chuckled, remembering.  "My dad and my uncles, they're all like, 'You arrested Gil Bilotti?'  So ever since then, they call me _capo_."  

                Lisa chuckled.   "So how do I get online?" she asked.  "I kind of wanted to see something on the FBI's network."  

                "Just open up Internet Explorer," Jason advised.  "You want a drink?  I make a mean margarita."  He held a bottle of Jose Cuervo in his fist.   

                "Sounds good," Lisa decided.  She opened up a browser and logged into the FBI's secure network.  One username and password later, she was able to get access to the secure CREEDESCAPE folder on VICAP.  Jason Sullivan walked over and looked at the screen over her shoulder.  Lisa didn't mind.  Another set of eyes couldn't hurt.  Besides, he was cute.  He handed Lisa a glass containing shockingly green liquid.   Detective Alvarez, perhaps sensing that they wanted to be alone, moved over to the kitchen, where he busied himself with breaking down and cleaning his shotgun.  

                There were quite a few documents in the CREEDESCAPE folder.  Lisa checked out a few of them.  Reports from the scene.  Nothing that didn't tell her anything she didn't already know.  There was a subfolder called Clinton_Correctional, and Lisa checked that.  Professor Creed's prison records were there, along with a few other files.  One was called PHONECALL.  Curious, Lisa opened it up.  

                It proved to be a standard interview form with one of the lieutenants on the block.  Apparently, three days before his escape, Professor Creed had asked for a family phone call to his cousin.  This was the first time since he had come to death row that he had asked for one.  He gave his cousin's name as Elisa Chesoyo.  Ms. Chesoyo had a phone number in Philadelphia.  They hadn't followed up on the lead yet, as things were still pouring in from the escape site.   It was marked for followup for the next day.  

                _Hmmmm, _Lisa Starling thought, and sipped her margarita.  

                "Think his cousin helped him out?" Sullivan asked.  

                "I want to find out what I can," she said.  

                Philadelphia directory assistance had no listing for an Elisa Chesoyo.   Double-checking with the number available to police officers, which included unlisted numbers, confirmed that.  Elisa Chesoyo had never gotten a Pennsylvania driver's license, or any other state for that matter. She had no criminal record.  In fact, she'd never bothered to get a Social Security card either.  

                It took some tracking to find out where the number went.  It was what Lisa had thought:  the prepaid cell phones sold in 7-11's and convenience stores.  Most cops hated these.  The bad guys could buy them, register them in any name they wanted, and be up and running and hard to track in an hour.  You could see some guy talking on one, but unless you had the ESN, you couldn't get a warrant.

                It was pretty obvious:  Elisa Chesoyo spelled A-L-I-A-S.  The tangy taste of Lisa's margarita burned her tongue as she pondered that fact. 

                "Detective Alvarez?" Lisa's tone was inquisitive.  

                He stuck his head through the kitchen door.  "Yeah?" 

                "Do you speak Spanish?" 

                His dark eyes popped open comically.  "Why, however did you guess?"  

                Lisa chuckled.  "I'm a profiler," she explained.  "They pay me for stuff like that."  

                "Yeah, I do.  Whatcha need?' 

                "Does the word _chesoyo _mean anything to you?"  

                He pondered for a moment.  "No, not really," he said thoughtfully.  

                "You're hedging," Lisa said.  "How about breaking it up?  Doesn't _soy yo _mean _I am_?" 

                "_Yo soy,_" he corrected.  "Well, sometimes.  Like if you're knocking at the door and someone asks who it is, in English you say 'It's me'.  In Spanish you say '_soy yo_.'  But I don't know what _che _means."  

                Lisa Starling, who had studied Argentine Spanish in her attempts to bring her cousin to justice, did.  

                "Means 'hey' in Argentine Spanish," she said deliberately.  

                _Elisa Chesoyo.  Elisa Hey, it's me.  _

_                Hey Lisa, it's me.  _

Lisa swallowed.  

                "You think you know who the perp who sprang Creed is?" Jason Sullivan asked, interested.  

                Lisa took a shuddering breath.  What would he think?  He seemed to be a nice guy, but a good cop through and through.  There was no way he would ever understand how she'd betrayed the FBI, how she'd helped a cop-killer evade justice.  

                She shook her head suddenly and felt a pang of guilt stab her through and through.  In an Argentine prison cell, this had seemed to be so hard a decision to make.  Now it seemed worse, and she hated herself.  Hated herself for what she'd done, and for what she was about to say.  

                "No," she whispered.  "Just an idea, that's all."  

                _Doesn't mean it's Susana.  Could just be a name they picked.  Would've made perfect sense for a perp to have his girlfriend buy the phone.  A great old red herring.  _

Professor Creed's call to his cousin had been taped, and there was a written copy of the conversation in the file.  No tape yet.  That probably took time to pull from the archives.  But there it was.  Professor Creed had told his ostensible cousin that he would be in court 7 AM today.  Simply looking at a map would have told the perp where and when he would have been passing in that van.  

                Plus, she realized, his cousin.  Professor Creed's file didn't indicate that he _had _a cousin or not.  Susana wasn't his cousin.  She was hers.  

                _Doesn't prove anything, _she told herself, but uneasiness wormed into her gut nonetheless.  

                "Wow, they've been busting their butt," Jason Sullivan said.  "Prison records, everything, all online."  

                "Yeah," Lisa responded shortly, and pulled at her beer.  

                "So what do you think happened?" he asked.  

                Lisa shrugged.  "I'm not sure," she said.  "It's not something I'm supposed to be working.  My job is the Bludgeon Man."  

                "Yeah, but you're curious, right?"  

                Lisa sighed and nodded.  "I feel…I don't know, I feel responsible."  

                "Makes sense," Sullivan observed, "but it wasn't your fault.  Hindsight's always twenty-twenty.  If I'd have thought some guy in a New York prison knew who this sicko was I'd have sent a squad car there myself to get the guy.  You didn't know.  Pure and simple."  

                Kenton had largely said the same thing to her.  But hearing it from him was better.  He seemed to honestly mean it.  From Kenton, she couldn't help but get the idea he was saying it just to buck her up.  That he was sitting in the basement of Quantico thinking _Lisa Starling screwed up.  _  With Sullivan, she felt that he honestly didn't think she'd freed a killer.  

                _Even though I have. And she did this.  _Then, right on the tails of that:  _Stop it, Lisa.  _

"How bout the Bludgeon Man?"  Sullivan prompted.  "Think Creed was lying to you about him?"  

                Lisa cleared her throat.  "Creed didn't tell us much, really.  He said that the Bludgeon Man was a man estranged from his nature.  He said that someone had taken away something from the Bludgeon Man.  Something that he wanted back more than anything.  Whatever it was, losing it caused him so much rage and shame that he turned to killing."  She stopped, her eyes upwards and focused on nothing as she tried to recall.  

                "Oh, wait," she said.  "He's no longer able to do the sorts of things he wants to do.  So he kills to get around that."   

                "You think he was lying?"  

                "It's so vague it doesn't mean much," she explained. "A lot of serial killers have a stressor that sets them off.  Usually it's either relationship or job.  They lose one and _bam.  _Sometimes it's something else.  Jeffrey Dahmer's mom called him, that's the only thing they've found that set him off."  

                Sullivan nodded.  

                "Still," he mused.  "It's something."  

                "Rocked me more when Creed sat there and told me the Bludgeon Man was using drugs to paralyze his victims."  

                "Hmmm," he mused.  "Could the Bludgeon Man be a doctor?" 

Automatically, Lisa's profiler-trained mind called up a list.  _Killer doctors. H.H. Holmes.  Thomas Neill Cream. Morris Bolber. Joseph Mengele. Frank Sweeney.  Harold Shipman.  Hannibal Lecter.  Michael Swango.  Teet Haerm and Allgen Lars Thomas.  Susana Alvarez Lecter, who just happens to still be around, and who speaks Argentine Spanish, and so it would be perfectly normal for her to say "Lisa!  Che, soy yo!"— ahhh, Lisa, quit it._

"I doubt it," she said.  "Doctors have to see patients every day.  They're out and about.  Someone as angry as the Bludgeon Man is has some sort of mental problem.  He wouldn't be able to appear as normal in a doctor-patient situation.  Maybe a job where he has access to drugs.  But that could be a lot.  He could be a lab tech.  He could be an orderly.  Maybe even not a hospital angle.  He could've been an orderly in the Army and have drugs from that, even.  Or work for a pharmaceutical company."  

"Maybe he's a surgeon," Jason Sullivan suggested.  "Their patients are knocked out when they get to them."  

Lisa blinked.  _Killer surgeons :Frank Sweeney.  Susana Alvarez Lecter.  _Again, Susana.  Had it been an external voice suggesting it, Lisa would've happily stuck her fingers in her ears and sang _La la la _until the voice stopped.  But it wasn't:  it was her own trained profiler's mind.  

_It is **not **Susana, _she told herself firmly.  

"Even so, they're out and being seen. Someone this angry is not going to be functional," she said.  She found herself nervous that she was going to say something about Susana out loud.  Jason Sullivan seemed like a nice guy and she liked him.   And he had a cute butt.  But if he knew she was so obsessed with her murderous cousin, he'd take that cute butt and march it away from poor crazy Lisa Starling.  

"That's true," he said.  "Just a thought.  Wasn't your cousin a surgeon?"

Lisa bit her lip to avoid screaming.  

"Well, yes, but she didn't kill any of her patients.  Once we found out it was her – years later – we crawled over her records with a fine-tooth comb.  She never so much as tried. She didn't mix work and play.  She was a good surgeon."  _In fact, she's still a good surgeon right now, treating rich Europeans.  She's probably treating some right now.  She **better **be._   

Jason seemed to sense her nerves and backed off the subject.  "You think the Bludgeon Man mixes work and play?  If he works in a hospital he might be noticeable.  If he's messed up."   

"It's possible.  He's getting his drugs from somewhere."  

Lisa forced herself to get out of the CREEDESCAPE folder and back into the BLUDGMAN investigation.  She hit a few more things, reading them desultorily.  It was hard.  She wanted to go through the Creed folder, find out what the murderous professor had been up to.  Where was he now? 

In order to make herself stop thinking about it, she asked, "So what did you do with the rest of my people?"  

 "Like I told you," he said.  "Got em into homes of local people – Boston cops and Boston FBI.  Easier to protect 'em that way."  

"Thanks," she said.  "You didn't need to do that."  

"No big deal," he said.  "Part of the job.  While you're here we keep you safe, just like anyone else.  Part of being a cop."  

Lisa smiled.  She decided she liked Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan.  A good cop, a nice guy, and good-looking.  

Her glass was refilled more times than she'd imagined as the night went on.  The free-floating anxiety about Professor Creed's escape was beginning to fade under a nice feeling of tequila-induced security.  They talked about their respective careers in their respective agencies.  He mentioned his family in passing but didn't talk overly much about it.  He'd never been married; just a hardworking cop all his adult life.  

They spoke for a bit about the Bludgeon Man, but dropped the subject in an unspoken truce.  Both of them were sick to death of the Bludgeon Man.  He occupied their working hours; this was a break, a chance to relax.  

Finally, Jason Sullivan rose a bit shakily.  

                "Well," he said, "lemme show you where the bedroom is and then I'll crash on the couch.  Make yourself at home."  He led her down the hall to a simply furnished bedroom.   It, too, was neat and orderly.  A dresser, bed, and nightstand were all the furniture in the room.  The bed was pretty big and made military-style.  A quarter would bounce on those sheets.  On the walls were a few posters of cars:  Jason Sullivan was a fan of classic Mustangs.  

                "Here you are," Jason said.  "I'll just go crash out on the couch." He straightened himself up as if to leave.  Lisa didn't want him to.  She liked him.  And there was a fair amount of Jose Cuervo floating through her bloodstream, so she felt a little more comfortable giving in to her inner urges than she normally would.  

_Hell with it. I get some fun sometime, don't I? _

"Nah, forget that," Lisa whispered and threw her arms around his neck.  His lips were warm and surprised and tasted of margarita mix.  After a moment's surprise, his arms were around her, strong and powerful but also gentle.  There was a clumsy moment in which their pistols, strapped to each one's hips, ground into each other.  After the guns were stowed on the nightstand, they returned to the business at hand.  

                _Lisa Starling, _a shocked, moral voice spoke up in her head, _are you really about to do this?  What about Susana? What about Creed?  What about the Bludgeon Man?  _

_                Heck with 'em, _she answered that voice, _someone else can hunt 'em for now.  Who says I have  to be a Girl Scout all the time?  _

Then his hands were on her body, and hers on his, fingers seeking buttons greedily.  Their mouths were warm on each other, and thoughts of serial killers completely vanished from Lisa Starling's mind for the first time in weeks.  


	8. Consumnation

_Author's note:  This is a different chapter for me – it's that try-writing-different-things bit again.  I assure the die-hard gore fans that they aren't forgotten.  Next chapter, we'll have something for you.  In the meantime, things take a slightly more adult turn.  After consulting with a few other authors on FF.net who all agreed this chapter was more R than NC-17, here we are.   _

                The shower is running in this fine suite at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.  Steam billows from behind the white plastic curtain.  In the large tub, a man stands under the spray from the gold showerhead.  He finds the shower quite pleasant.  It is the first time in six years he has taken a shower in a stall with a curtain.  The first time he has been able to take a shower with good water pressure and plenty of hot water.  The first time he has not had guards watching him via camera even while he bathes.  

                Professor Thomas Creed has been in the shower for twenty minutes.  This, too, is a treat for him; he does not have an unseen voice from a speaker barking at him to get his ass out of the shower and back in his cell proper.  In fact, for Professor Creed, the suite and its contents are a paradise playground of sensory events.  All those years locked away in his tiny, boring cell, with its blank concrete walls and so little to do have left their mark on him.  He wants to indulge his senses as much as he can; to greedily fill his gut with smells and sights and touch.  

                Professor Creed shuts off the water and steps out of the tub.  He stands naked on the terrycloth mat for a moment and extends his arms out. He brings them into his chest.  There is still some soreness in his left arm from early that morning, when the police van flopped onto its side, forcing the manacled professor in turn to land on his, but it is quite tolerable.  Susana has given him some painkillers and pronounced the injury minor.  The water on his skin is cold and uncomfortable, but not overly so, and the professor relishes this sensation as much as he relished the hot water cascading over him a few moments ago.  He closes his eyes and inhales the aroma of the bathroom.  The smells making up that aroma are not unpleasant, as you might expect.  The Boston Park Plaza prides itself on the excellence of its maid staff.  Professor Creed privately suspects that the majority of the maids hail from the same continent as the woman awaiting him, and that their papers would not stand up to serious scrutiny.  But they have been quite industrious in their attempts to ensure that his showering experience has been pleasant.  

                The pleasant scent of the shampoo; the briskly clean smell of the soap; even the faintly acrid scent of the water in the shower stall and toilet.  To the professor, all these things are welcome.  He inhales deeply and relishes them.  His skin pimples into goosebumps as the water on it grows colder, but even this experience is far from intolerable and quite welcome.  

                Professor Creed opens his strange pinpoint-pupilled eyes, adding sight to the mixture.  The textured wallpaper and clean white of the plumbing fixtures are also not unpleasant; his cell on Death Row was painted gray and his toilet and sink stainless steel.  He pivots and observes his reflection in the fogged-up mirror.  He has little body hair. Only a sprinkling of dark hair across his chest and a patch circling his navel. Even the sight of his own body is a new and pleasant experience.  The mirror tastefully cuts off his reflection at the waist.  Professor Creed studies himself in the mirror and seems pleased.  He does not share Susana Alvarez Lecter's vanity, but he does enjoy the simple ability to view so much of his body at once.  

                On a hook on the bathroom door is a thick white terrycloth robe, and Professor Creed takes it, sliding it over his arms and back.  He is not a bodybuilder by any means, but a strict regimen of daily exercise in his cell has kept his body fit.  He did not always do this; it was not until a year ago, when Susana began writing to him and began to lay the plans that have culminated in his freedom.  But a year's worth of push-ups and sit-ups has ensured that he is strong, close to what he was when free.  Now that he will have untrammeled access to food, he supposes the rest will follow shortly.  Professor Creed plans to indulge his appetite for food just as soon as he is able; now, however, is time to glut other appetites.  

                Professor Creed takes a white terrycloth towel from the towel bar in order to dry his legs.  The robe is quite comfortable and thirstily pulls the water from his skin, but does not do an acceptable job on his legs.  But the feel of the towel – thin to most of us, but far better than jail towels – is also a welcome experience for him.  Once that is done, he takes another to towel-dry his hair.  Like most men, Professor Creed disdains the use of the small hair dryer mounted conveniently next to the sink.  Such things are for women.  

                On the white surface of the counter is a tube of toothpaste and two toothbrushes.  Professor Creed takes time to brush his teeth.  Even the taste of the toothpaste is welcome to him.  When his teeth are suitably clean, he combs his hair and lifts the can of Edge shaving gel and the Mach-3 razor.  It is far preferable an experience to shave with these implements than the cheap disposable razors he was obliged to use in prison.  Professor Creed lifts a dab of gel to his nose and inhales the fragrance deeply.  Then he spreads it on his face and runs the razor over his cheeks and chin.  He rinses the gel from his face and takes a moment to examine the tiny black hairs in the sink, small grains of black against the white.  

                Next to his can of shaving gel are some of Susana's toiletries. Her razor, a hairbrush, and a toothbrush.  He examines them each in turn. There are several jars and bottles; mysterious feminine things stored in pretty bottles of plastic and glass.  The professor feels almost troglodytic as he observes them without any idea as to what they might be.  He does pick up each one in turn to feel the bottle, read the label, and sniff the contents.    

                Once they had arrived back in the suite, they had both been tired.  The drive down had taken longer than normal, since they had doubled back to Plattsburgh and then taken the Thruway in order to elude law enforcement.  They had arrived in Boston in the afternoon and by mutual agreement had slept for a few hours.  Once they'd woken up, room service had provided them with an excellent meal and wine.  Professor Creed had not had alcohol since his incarceration, and he had appreciated the taste.  The meal, too, had been wonderful.  Filet mignon.  After the years of prison food, all three meals served in the same eight-hour shift, the professor was able to appreciate it much more.  Knowing that he could have more if he wanted it, enjoying the taste of the meat and wine, and knowing that no one would be barking at him to give back the tray or they'd suit up a team.   It all meant a great deal to him.  

After dinner, Susana had suggested he might enjoy a long shower.  She had enjoyed such a thing after her own escape from prison, and she had recommended it.  The sultry gleam in her eye had been sufficient to tell the non-absent-minded professor that her goal was not solely to ensure his cleanliness.  He had gone into the suite's bathroom – almost as large as the cell he had lived in for six years – and taken a long shower.   

                Professor Creed carefully examines the doorknob as it moves.  It has been so long since he last opened or closed a door for himself.  On Death Row, the doors were opened electronically; things that moved seemingly by themselves, openly scornful of Professor Creed's volition.  For a moment, he sees himself and smiles ruefully:  a man in a hotel bathrobe playing with the bathroom door while his woman awaits him in the bedroom beyond.   But Professor Creed wants to hold off on _that, saving the best for last.   _

                On the toilet tank is a pair of black silk boxer shorts.  The professor takes a long moment to stare at these.  Almost assuredly, these and all their like have been bought by women for their men.  This pair, however, have been bought by Susana Alvarez Lecter for him. He takes a moment to consider what that might mean.  The professor, along with the vast majority of his gender, is perfectly happy with simpler underthings.  But he opens the robe and steps into the silk boxers because she wanted him to have them.  

                Before they ever began the correspondence that has culminated in this, placing him in all this luxury after the years of deprivation, Thomas Creed and Susana Alvarez possessed much in common.  Both of them are inexplicable in the natural order of things.  Both of them are highly intelligent and fond of culture.  Both of them are frightening, dangerous monsters capable of atrocities that boggle the minds of normal humans.  

                But both of them had also come to the conclusion long ago that they might be forced to walk the earth alone.  To put it simply, their choices of partners were strictly limited by their knowledge of their own natures.  During these past four years, Susana Alvarez could have had her pick of free Frenchmen.  Yet she wanted none of them; she wanted him.  Wanted him enough to place her own freedom at risk.  Wanted him enough to maneuver circumstances so that freeing him was within her power.  This is a heady thing itself for the professor, and he is determined to show her that he, too, will go to the same extent for her.  If need be, he will kill for her without a second thought. 

                But for now they are no longer alone.  They are here, together, delivered from their enemies and indulged in opulence.  The professor has absorbed enough of the male ideal of this culture to feel slightly ashamed that this has all been paid for with Susana's money.  He knows that Susana's wealth far outpaces his own.  He also knows that money means not a whit to Susana Alvarez Lecter and never has.  Professor Creed has some money of his own, hidden away in the basement of his vacation cottage on Keuka Lake, back in New York.  He has resolved to do all that he can: retrieve that money when it is possible and present it to Susana to be mingled with her own, for their common weal.  

                The thoughts of money are tawdry, and Thomas Creed stands and forces himself to banish it from his mind.  Now is not for such things.  Now is time for more pleasant pursuits.   

                Professor Creed steps from the bathroom and walks through the living area to the closed bedroom door.  The carpet under his bare feet is soft, and he rather likes this.  He stops for a moment to freeze in his memory the feel of the carpet, since he knows that momentarily it will be swept away by other things for him to sense.  He takes a moment to knock gently on the door. 

                "Come in," a low, pleased voice says.  Professor Creed finds himself thinking of a lioness, or a tigress, or a female jaguar.  Something with pleasing curves and eyes, something beautiful to behold, but something that will claw you and shred you to bloody ribbons without a scrap of guilt.  But even these animals do not equal Susana Alvarez Lecter.  They kill to defend themselves or to feed themselves and their young.  Susana Alvarez Lecter will kill for her own amusement, as does Professor Creed.  

                Professor Creed enters the bedroom and squints his eyes.  There are only a few candles lit within the room, tiny tongues of flame dancing hither and yon.  After a moment, his pupils expand slightly, and Professor Creed's eyes actually look more like the human norm.  They slide appreciatively over the woman lying on the bed.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter lies on the bed, smiling a knowing, hungry smile.  She is wearing a sheer negligee and black nylons.  The hem of the negligee is short enough that Professor Creed can see she is wearing a garter belt; he can see the edge of the garter strap and the hooks where they attach to the lace tops of her stockings.  On one hand she wears the ring he created for her.  He stops and tilts his head, drinking in the sight of her before him, which delights her to no end.  In the candlelight her eyes are pools of blood.  They bespeak hunger and desire of her own.   Around her neck hangs a fine gold chain, barely visible in the light.  From it hangs a ruby that picks up the color of her eyes.  

                Professor Creed has the form of a man like any other, and his body responds to the sight before him.  He feels himself stiffening in the black silk of his new boxers, and smiles himself.  But there is no levity here.  They are both pleased, and the desire and energy in the room is palpable.  Humor, however, is absent.  

                Susana slides off the bed and slips her feet into a pair of stiletto-heeled pumps.  As an Argentine girl, she has known all her life how to dress for a man.  The patriarchal culture she grew up in taught her every last little detail, treating the duty of pleasing a man as one of the most important skills an Argentine girl can have.  Susana had learned well, but as a Lecter she rejected the whole idea of male dominance. The patriarchal culture may have taught her, but her patriarch himself taught her to live on her own terms, as he had.   It was fine to dress glamorously, but she should do so for herself.  And she will not wait like some sort of potted flower to be picked. No, she has chosen her own man.  She has settled on him, set him free, and now they will consummate their bond.   On whose terms this will be remains to be seen.  

                The air is heavy with their mutual desire.  If anyone else were in the room, they would have done well to leave immediately.  Danger and desire twine around them.  It is not unlike watching a lion and lioness preparing to mate.  They clearly want to indulge their animal appetites for each other.  But simply because their claws are sheathed and their teeth not bared does not mean they are not dangerous.  

                Susana's perfume hangs heavy in the professor's nostrils as they approach each other. Her arms circle his neck; his grasp her waist. The negligee is wonderfully slick to his touch.  Her skin is warm and he drinks in the wonder of her femininity, something he had only dreamed of throughout the long years of his incarceration.  Their lips touch.  They have both been waiting for this moment.  

                In kissing her the professor can sense her dual natures.  Her lips are soft and smooth and wonderful, but her teeth – sharp and white – are not far behind.  The danger simply fires his passion to a higher level.  As it does hers; Susana Alvarez Lecter is quite well aware that Professor Creed's taste for atrocity rivals her own.  

                They indulge in a kiss, tasting each other, for several long minutes. Then Susana's arms shift around his, pulling the robe down, eager to free his body so that she might have it.  The professor moves his arms slowly.  He does not want to let go of her, but he also knows she will rip the robe down the middle otherwise.  Susana can be patient when she must, but she does not want to be now.

                He holds back, even as Susana pivots with him, moving him towards the bed.  This frustrates her; he can tell.  She may not quite understand why, he thinks.  It is not that he does not want her; the long, hot stone against his lower belly is adequate proof of that.  Nor is it that he is tangled in the remains of Victorian morals.  The word 'repressed' is rarely appropriate for a man who once drove an eight-inch railspike through one of his victim's skulls.  No, Thomas Creed holds back because he wants to savor each and every moment, taste it and smell it and feel it, taste _her, smell __her, and feel __her, and drain each moment completely dry before he moves on to the next.  This, he wants to be…perfect.  _

                But Susana is more impatient than he, having lived the past six years in a world of colors and smells and things to touch and do.  She urges him over to the bed, and he goes, albeit slowly.  Once on the bed, her lips lock more firmly onto his.  Slowly, Thomas Creed takes the hem of the negligee in his hand and raises it up.  She releases her grip on his neck in order to let him lift it free.  

                He takes a long moment to observe the lovely but dangerous vision of Susana Alvarez Lecter naked before him, and decides in that moment that he will happily spend the rest of his life with her.  Her arms are wrapped around him, pulling him greedily closer to her.  It takes a moment to slip the boxers down his legs, and then they are both naked.  He buries his head into the hollow of her neck as he moves atop her.  Then she seizes his hair with one hand, forcing him to meet her eyes, and plants her other hand flat down on his buttock, pushing him down.  Her nyloned calves wrap around the backs of his knees, holding him fast.

                He moves forward then, giving in to her urges and his own.  Her eyes gleam at him with the knowledge that her hunger will be satiated.  Now, at last, she is willing to wait and does not try to force him.  Slowly, he moves forward to join with her.   When he enters her, it is like liquid silk and they gasp with one breath.

…

                The morning light shines in the window, and she wakes up slowly, drowsy, easy and comfortable in the warmth they have generated under the blanket.  Her legs shift smoothly and she rolls over to look at his sleeping form.  He is ungainly now; that body that pleasured her so last night splayed across the bed.  One arm is thrown carelessly over her, between her arm and her ribs, so that he can either prevent her from escaping the bed or grab a quick feel when consciousness finally returns.  Grinning, she thinks the latter more likely.  

                She is quite content as she extricates herself from his grip.  Someone else can do the hunting today.  All she wants is to lie here in bed and listen to him breathe as she reviews the memory of their mating.  She studies his face as he sleeps.  He has missed a few spots shaving.  The corner of his jaw has a suspicious patch of hair, as does the bottom of his jaw.  

                For a time she is content simply to wallow in bed, watching him.  She supposes she ought to feel some sort of guilt for what she has done.  In her youth, it had always been taught to her that _nice girls don't do that; boys have sex with girls who will let them but they marry the girls who won't.  She'd kept her legs firmly closed to the boys, developing a bit of a reputation as a prude. __ Then, as an adult, she has been too obsessed with her work to allow much room for a man in her life.  Even that was a bit of a euphemism.  She has been too obsessed with her __cousin to allow a man in her life.  What man could possibly have understood her need to see her fiendish relative behind bars?  What man could understand how confused and conflicted she'd been once that had happened?  _

                But for now that was behind her.  For once in her life, Lisa Starling found herself not caring a fig about Susana Alvarez.   Or Professor Thomas Creed, for that matter.  If Professor Creed was dumb enough to pay a call, there was a cruiser parked in front of the apartment and a cop sitting in the kitchen.   Police protect their own, and Jason had done a pretty damned good job of whomping up protection for the FBI task force on short notice.  All of them tucked away in the homes of different  Boston police officers, all of them guarded by other Boston officers and FBI agents from the Boston field office who had volunteered their time.  That was pretty cool, she thought.  

                But even that didn't matter too much to her.  Everything was being taken care of.  For now, she was content to watch him as he slept.  She sidled closer to him and began to play with the clocksprings of dark hair on Jason's chest.  He grunted when she did that and rolled away to protect the growth.  Lisa grinned.  She had expected to feel guilty when she woke up.  She'd expected some sort of Puritan goodwife expressing horror in her mind that she had _dared_ to put her own selfish emotions ahead of The Job.  But she didn't.  Not a shred of guilt, not a shred of moral indignation, just a pleasant, easy feeling she rather enjoyed.   She wasn't really hungover, either.  

                The bray of her cell phone interrupted her reverie, and that made her scowl.  Her eyes roamed the room, but it was not handy.  Hmm.  Down the hall in the living room probably.  And that's where the cop on guard probably was.   Parading naked into the living room in front of a uniformed cop wasn't her idea of fun.  Her clothes weren't handy either.  They seemed to have been kicked under the bed or something.  Her memories of last night were vague.  Her suitcase was in the living room; no help there.  

                Jason's one dresser drawer was partly open, and Lisa spied her salvation in there:  a rolled-up blue T-shirt.  She unrolled it and held it up to observe the words _BOSTON POLICE emblazoned across the front in yellow letters.  She put the T-shirt on.  It fell to mid-thigh.  Good enough.   She headed down the hall to the living room where her phone was ringing, moving swiftly to grab it before it rolled to voicemail.  _

                There was indeed a Boston cop in uniform sitting at the kitchen table.  His eyes widened.  Lisa smiled shortly at him and grabbed her phone, heading back to the bedroom to take the call as if she wasn't dressed only in a stolen T-shirt.  She pressed TALK on the phone and lifted it to her ear.  

                "Deputy Chief Starling?  This is Beverly."  The secretary for Behavioral Sciences had been there seemingly forever.  At least since Lisa had been a rank recruit working on the SUSDOOVER force.  

                "Yes, Bev, whatcha got?" she asked the older woman.  

                Beverly's grandmotherly tones conflicted oddly with what she was saying.   "Well, Chief Kenton sent an FBI forensics team to Dannemora, to the prison. They were going over Professor Creed's cell.  He wanted me to call you with the results.  Let me just get him on the line for you."  

                By that time, Lisa had made it back to the safety of the bedroom.  She sat on the side of the bed.   Jason Sullivan was awake and looked at her with a sidewise grin.  

                "Nice T-shirt," he said.  

                Lisa covered up her phone and waved her hand at him.  "It's a trophy," she explained.  "Now I'm on the phone.  This is work."  

                "Hey, Lisa's boss," he caroled.  Lisa swiped at him to shut him up, frowning.  

                "Starling?  Kenton here.  How you holding up in Beantown?"  

                Lisa Starling, who had actually lived in Boston once and never once called it Beantown nor heard anyone else call it that, shrugged.  "We're okay.  Boston PD insisted on moving our agents out of the hotel.  They're all holed up for now, everyone's accounted for.  But I don't think Creed is going to show up."  

                "You don't?  Why is that?"  

                "It's sweet to be out, and he's not going to waste it that way."  

                "That makes sense, Starling, but we're talking about a guy here who doesn't think like you or me."  

                "No," Lisa said, "but he _will _want to stay free, and he seemed mostly interested in taunting me.  I don't think he wants to go after me.  If it was that, he'd be going after someone who had more of a visible role in bringing him down."  

                As soon as she said it, it occurred to her that the visible people on the Creed investigation were all dead, killed by Susana Alvarez Lecter.  Creed might be gunning for her simply because Susana had taken away his chances to get anyone else.  _But he's not, _she told herself, _and we're not going to talk any more about Susana, cause she had nothing to do with this.  Right?  _

 She found she had trouble believing herself.  Kenton didn't seem to express his own doubts.  Instead he changed the subject.  

                "Well, Starling, we've been going over Creed's cell at Clinton Correctional with a fine-tooth comb.  The guards reported that he carried on a lot of discussions by mail.  He had…pen pals."  Kenton let out a sardonic chuckle.  "All of Creed's mail was copied.  Incoming and outgoing.  Problem is, their photocopier at Clinton must be a hundred years old and the copies look like crap.  We're sending the best we got down to Quantico for handwriting analysis.  Don't think we're going to get much.  But one thing jumped right out at us."  

                Jason Sullivan rose up, his arm slithering around Lisa's waist as she sat on the edge of the bed, and began to haul her towards him like an octopus seeking its prey. Lisa smacked his hand, trying to make him release her while she was on the phone with her boss.   

                "What was that?" she asked, wondering what he would think if he knew where she was.  

                "There are letters from three people that are missing.  Gone.  Creed destroyed all of the originals.  The prison has the copies, of course, but the originals are gone.  Creed knew what he was doing.  This was planned.  Let me run some names by you, see if any of them ring a bell."  

                "Okay," Lisa said, still trying to pry Jason Sullivan's hand off her waist and not laugh.  For his part, he steadily hauled her across the sheet towards him.   

                "John Martin.   He's a big anti-death-penalty activist in New York State.  Local boys caught him quick.  We're running down his alibi now to see if he checks out.  Admits he wrote Creed but says he had nothing to do with the escape."  

                "I haven't heard of him, but we'll check it out from here, see what we can find," Lisa promised.  

                "The other two appear to have been, ahem, personal friends of the professor.  There was a Regina Schacht from Bonn, Germany.  Also a Marie Lavelle from Paris, France.  Interpol is looking for what they can find on them."

                At the word _Paris, _Lisa stiffened.  She found herself thinking immediately of the one resident of Paris she knew. She'd hoped and prayed for this not to be.  Would they find out that Lisa knew where Susana was?  No, it couldn't be.  Susana had been quiet for so long.  Why now?  Why Creed?

                _Because Creed is similar to her father, _her mind whispered.  _There's your motive right there.  She's always been Daddy's girl and she wants a man just like her daddy.  _

                "Well, it's probably either a smokescreen or a red herring," Lisa said to belay her nerves.

                "That's what I'm thinking.  We're running a check through INS to see if we have either of those two names entering the country.  When we have anything we'll let you know."  

                "Sounds good," Lisa said.  "Hey, can you fax what you find to the task force's offices?  Might help to have a look at it."  

                "Sure thing, Starling.  Be careful."  

                "We will," Lisa said, and hit END on her phone.  She turned and glared at Jason Sullivan, who grinned widely.  

                "I can't believe you did that while I was on the phone with my boss," she accused. 

                He was unrepentant.  "I was just protecting you from the big bad serial killer," he teased.  

                "He's not here."  

                "You never know," Jason said.  "Maybe he's under the bed, just waiting for you to put your foot down."   He chuckled, parodying his own behavior from the morning before.  "We gotta keep you safe and protected, you know."  

                She dropped her cell phone on the nightstand and went back to him voluntarily.  Otherwise, it seemed, he would drag her back.  But she found she didn't care too much about that, caveman-like as it was.  It was nice to have a guy who wanted you, even if he hauled you across the bed while you were talking to your boss.  

                "I think you're doing just fine at that," she said, and dropped her lips to his.  

                "Mmm-hmmm," he said, and shifted on the bed.  She felt his hands on the hem of her borrowed T-shirt, then the hem was yanked up roughly.  She smacked his hand again.  

                "Do you _only _think about one thing?" she asked.  

He pretended to think about it, making a show of rubbing his chin and pondering.  "Hmm….well….yeah, now that you mention it, I do."   

                "I'm supposed to go to work," she informed him.  

                "It's Saturday," he said calmly.  

                "Yeah, but there are things we'll need to do."  

                "There are, but you don't need to get dressed to do them," he said.

                "Yes, I do," she said, grinning.  "I want to get into the office.  The Bludgeon Man doesn't take weekends off."  

                "Awww," he said, disappointed.  

                Lisa located her clothing and managed to get her suitcase from the living room with slightly more dignity than she had before.  After a shower and some clean clothing, she felt a little more like the deputy chief of Behavioral Sciences.  

                She wondered what people would think.  Would this get out?  It hardly mattered, really.  Blame it on the margarita.  

                As she arranged her pistol in its holster and her files in her briefcase, Jason Sullivan appeared from down the hall.  His hair was wet and shining, like a pelt.  He slid his own gun into its holster.  

                "C'mon," he said.  "I know a great place for breakfast."  

                Lisa Starling, on her way to hunt a serial killer, smiled softly at him.


	9. The Uncarved Block

                _Author's notes:  Here's some gore for the gore fans.  _

The apartment was pleasantly furnished.  It was quite modern.  A black leather couch sat in front of a chrome coffee table.  An entertainment center of polished black metal served as home to expensive electronics:  a wide-screen TV, a stereo, and a DVD player.  The apartment's tenant, Jeremy Thornton, did well as a mutual-fund advisor.  Professor Creed was impressed with how his former student had done in post-collegiate life.  

                But that didn't mean he didn't have some business to settle with him.  No, Professor Creed had long regretted that he hadn't taken care of Thornton when he'd had the chance.  But that was no matter.  Discovering that Jeremy Thornton now lived in the city that Professor Creed and Susana Alvarez Lecter were hiding out in was a welcome plus. 

                Jeremy Thornton was not a tall man, standing five foot seven.  He was quite elegant and neat.  He wore an expensive white shirt, a tie of brilliant red silk, dark gray suit pants and wing tips.  His jacket was behind him on the couch.  He was young to be so well dressed, but that wasn't surprising given his job.

                It seemed Jeremy wasn't terribly happy to see his former professor.  He was lying on the floor as the professor loomed over him.  Susana stood behind him, watching intently as the professor dealt with the old matters that he was now able to take care of.  Jeremy didn't seem particularly happy to be lying on his carpeted floor.  Unfortunately, his wrists were tied tightly behind his back and his ankles bound together, leaving him no choice but to stare up at Professor Creed.  His mouth was sealed with a wide swath of duct tape.  

                "Hello, Jeremy," Professor Creed said calmly, and removed his glasses.  He touched one earpiece to his lips and sat down comfortably in Jeremy's office chair.  

                "Jeremy, I know it's been a while since we last met," Professor Creed said calmly.  He reached for his suit pocket with one hand and removed a Spyderco Civilian.  A long, curving, wicked knife, made as a last-ditch self-defense weapon for undercover agents.    Jeremy Thornton's wide eyes tracked the knife carefully.  Sweat glistened on his brow.  

                "I'd like to talk to you, Jeremy," Professor Creed continued.  "However, I must be assured that you won't scream.  Can you agree to not scream if I remove that tape from your mouth?"  

                Slowly, trying to fight the panic that ruled him, Jeremy Thornton nodded.  

                "_Very _good.  Now make sure you keep your word.  If you don't, Jeremy, then I'll have to use this knife. I do not possess a medical degree, as does my…companion here.  But I assure you I have enough practical experience to ensure that screaming would result in consequences…most unpleasant."  

                Jeremy Thornton's eyes were locked on his captor's.  He nodded once to show he understood.  

                "I'll trust you, Jeremy," Professor Creed said.  "_Don't _disappoint me.  You already have once, you know.  And I'm not a forgiving man."  

                 He reached down and pulled the tape free.  Jeremy licked his lips and stared up walleyed at Professor Creed and the woman behind him.  She was damn pretty, he thought crazily.  Delicate features, but those red eyes were damn spooky.  She wore a skirt suit and pumps.  She could've walked down the hall at the mutual fund company he worked at and no one would've given her a second look.  How the hell had a psychopath like Creed landed her?     And she was watching him with a small, pleased smile on her face.  There would be no help from her.  

                "What do you want from me?" Jeremy asked hoarsely.  

                "We have some old business to settle, Jeremy," Professor Creed said calmly.  

                Jeremy Thornton closed his eyes.  _Shit.  _He thought of six years ago, when he had been a junior in college.  "That again?  Come on, Professor Creed, that's all water over the dam."  

                "Perhaps to you," Professor Creed affirmed.  "But the fact is, Jeremy, you never should have been awarded your degree.  You violated the terms of academic honesty."  

                "That…come on, Professor, I can help you now.  I heard about you getting away.  You'll need money."  

                "I've got money," the woman interjected, smiling coldly.   "Therefore he does."  Both men glanced at her.    "Oh, I'm sorry," she said.  "Please go on.  I'm enjoying this."  

                "In my introductory philosophy class," Professor Creed said mildly,  "you played around in class through the entire term.  You cut class often."  

                "I was a college kid," Jeremy said.  

                "Oh, I could have forgiven you cutting class.  Students do _that _all the time.  Particularly the intro philosophy class; it's all non-majors who are taking the class to fulfill their requirements.  No, Jeremy, I'm here today for the same reason I brought you before the Student Council six years ago.  The final paper you submitted for my class was one that you purchased off the Internet."  

                "Student Council said I didn't do it," Jeremy quavered.  

                "Unfortunately for me, the police searched my home and discovered my hobby before the matter was adjourned.  After that, my standing in the academic community took a rather abrupt fall.  They dismissed the matter because of that, Jeremy.  They never said you weren't guilty."  

                Professor Creed stood up and began pacing around the room.  His voice was strident.  

                "Did you _honestly _think you'd get away with it?  I'd seen that paper at least ten times before.  My plan, Jeremy, was to file academic dishonesty charges against you and then take care of you myself.  Circumstances intervened, and I was in a situation where I wasn't able to get to you."  Behind his glasses, his eyes gleamed.  Those tiny pupils fixed on the face of his former student.  "But I am now," he commented.  "And fate – well, my fiancée, actually – has brought me to Boston.  Where you happened to be living.  You had some immense good luck, Jeremy, but it seems that's run out."  

                Professor Creed turned around and looked out over the city.  Jeremy Thornton had an apartment in a nice part of town, with a good view of the city.  It wasn't that high up – seven floors or so – but it was enough.  His apartment also had a balcony, on which Thornton had some tasteful patio furniture.   Susana watched him, smiling to herself.  He found himself rather enjoying this.  

                "The paper you bought," Professor Creed continued, "was a rather simplistic paper discussing the _Tao Te Ching _and specifically the concept of the uncarved block.  It claimed that Lao-tzu stated that to make something useful was to betray its nature.  A rather bizarre concept, and one I believe to be incorrect."  

                Professor Creed opened the glass door and strode out purposefully onto the balcony.  There was something wonderful in being outside, and so high up.  He breathed in the city air deeply and shot his cuffs.  Had she brought it up?  Yes, she had.   Thoughtfully, she'd agreed to carry it in her purse for him, as it would be easier to conceal. It was right there on the padded patio chair.  He turned and stared back into the room.  Jeremy Thornton cringed from his gaze.   

                "Okay," Jeremy said.  "Look, I had a lot of work.  I was in a jam and I panicked.  And it was wrong.  I admit that.   But listen, Professor Creed, you gotta listen to me.  I can make it worth your while.  How much do you want?  Name it.  I move money around every day.  Easy.  Whatever you want."  

                Professor Creed grabbed the rope binding Jeremy's ankles and began to drag him out onto the balcony.  The expensive pants ripped against the concrete floor and Jeremy's shirt rucked up. Jeremy continued to beg his erstwhile professor for mercy.  Professor Creed did not seem to be moved by the man's pleas.  

                "You know, that's one thing I never could tolerate about well-off students," Professor Creed said calmly.  "Money won't get you out of everything, Jeremy.  You never should have received your degree.  My own hobbies do not change that fact."  

                "Come on," Jeremy said.  "You're not gonna _kill _me.  It's not right."  

                "Why not?" Professor Creed rejoined.  "You not only buy a paper and present it as your own work, but you buy a puerile one.  Jeremy, let me show you how a thing may be quite useful without being changed.  Or carved, as Lao-tzu put it."  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter followed them outside, the heels of her pumps clattering on the concrete of the balcony.  She was interested in watching this.  Professor Creed had discovered his former student's name in the white pages in their suite.  A quick phone call, claiming to be from the Alumni Association, had proven that this Jeremy was his former cheating student.  It was a wonderful way to see him in action in a way she hadn't been able to before.  Plus, she allowed, it would be so much _fun _to watch Lisa flip out once she realized what had happened.  

                Jeremy fishtailed on the balcony, thrashing like a caught fish.  He thought they meant to throw him over the side.  That was true, to an extent.  However, Jeremy probably didn't have the imagination to realize what would happen next.  Susana did.  But this wasn't her job, it was Professor Creed's.  She just wanted to watch.  

                And there was something admirable in watching him.  His movements were crisp and decisive.  Everything he needed to do he did with an easy, practiced skill that she found pleasing to watch.  The six years of incarceration appeared to have done no harm to him at all.  It was like watching a professional baseball player pick up a bat and take a few practice swings.   He was doing what he had been born to do.  She'd never had the opportunity to see her father at work, but she thought it would be something like this.  So she stayed back and watched her man with no small degree of pleasure.

                Professor Creed lifted the white rope from the chair and sat down easily in it.  

                "Jeremy," he said easily, "this rope disproves your purchased paper.  It was already worked on, that is true.  Someone took the time to make this rope.  But when I have this rope, I can do things with it without needing to change it.  This rope is, vis-à-vis me, the uncarved block.  I have done nothing to change it.  But I can _use _this rope, Jeremy, without changing its nature."  

                Jeremy Thornton looked like a trapped rat as he watched Professor Creed tie the traditional thirteen loops in the end of the rope.  

                "You're gonna…hang me…no…," he whispered.

                "_Hang _you?  Not as such, no.  That wouldn't prove anything.  It's a rope.  You're supposed to use it to hang things.  Or people, for that matter."   Professor Creed finishing tying the noose and stood, walking over to his victim and slipping the rope over his neck.  "No, Jeremy, I shall show you how to use this rope – unchanged by me – as a sharp blade."  

                "What…you can't do that," Jeremy gasped.  Then it dawned on him what Professor Creed had said and he opened his mouth to scream.  The tip of Professor Creed's Civilian pressed his throat.   A drop of blood gathered and grew fat where the hooked tip dented the skin. 

                "Indeed I can, Jeremy, and I am.  If you scream, though, you'll encounter _this _sharp blade first.  You haven't much time left.  Why spend the remaining time in pain when you don't need to?"  

                Jeremy Thornton trembled.  He glanced over the side of his balcony, looked down, and shuddered.  There was no negotiating with this psycho.  There was merely a drop down to death.  Down, the horrible direction, down through the night air to the street below he would never quite reach.   But what was Creed talking about with a sharp blade?  It was a fucking _rope_.  

                "Observe, Jeremy," Professor Creed said.  "The uncarved block."  Then he lifted the smaller man bodily.  For a moment he cradled the smaller man in his arms.  Jeremy Thornton was pale and sweating.  Down, the terrible direction, the final and implacable destination.  Professor Creed pivoted and threw him over the side.  Up quickly and over the four-foot railing, and then he was screaming as he fell.  Cold air enveloped him as the pavement rose up to greet him.   Both Susana and Creed approached the railing to watch him fall.  

                Hanging is one of the oldest means of executions.  This is largely for its simplicity and inexpensiveness.  It can be a quite cruel means of execution; in a botched or purposefully harsh execution the victim will strangle to death over the course of fifteen minutes.  British and American hangmen of the past sought to make the procedure more humane and quicker.  In so doing, they instituted the long drop. 

                The idea behind the long drop was eminently humane, and it is worth pointing out that the hangmen who experimented to find the right drop were motivated by the urge to spare their charges unnecessary anguish.  The knot would be placed under the right ear.  The victim would drop a distance partially indicated by his or her height and weight.  This drop would come to a sudden stop, and the knot placement would jerk the neck.  Several bones in the neck would break in less than a second, causing the victim to suffer only a brief instant before becoming unconscious.  As before, the victim would strangle to death at the end of the rope.  However, now he or she would not be conscious for it.    

                The United States Army's experience with hangings had led them to the creation of a Hanging Drop Table.  Someone weighing one hundred twenty pounds or less is dropped eight feet and one inch; someone weighing two hundred twenty pounds will be dropped five feet.  For each five-pound increment in between there is another indicated length.   It is a means of execution made science, death sliced into neat increments.  

                One might think that if a long drop provided a humane execution, that the longer the better would be the case.  In fact, this is not quite so.  In hanging as in anything else, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Jeremy Thornton weighed one hundred and fifty-five pounds.  Had he had the misfortune of being hanged by an executioner following the Hanging Drop Table, he would have been dropped six feet and six inches.  There would have been a terrible jolt for him and then nothing.  

                But Professor Thomas Creed was Jeremy's hangman.  And the professor did not concern himself overmuch with whether or not the fates he inflicted on his victims was humane.  Thornton fell six feet, six inches, and kept on falling.  The rope Professor Creed had tied around his neck was fifty feet in length.  The end was firmly knotted to the railing on Thornton's balcony.  The remainder was all available for the drop.

                The rope tied around Jeremy Thornton's neck was no different than the rope it had been when Professor Creed bought it at a hardware store a few hours earlier.  He had added no chemicals to it, twisted it no differently.  No one would have ever believed that this simple hemp rope could become a sharp blade.  

                But when Jeremy Thornton's body came to a halt after almost a fifty-foot drop, a blade is exactly what it became.  The rope held.  Thornton's neck did not.  The rope scythed through the trachea of the throat and the powerful neck muscles relentlessly.  The mighty force of the stopped fall ripped Thornton's head from his body as easily as a man will rip a turkey leg from a Thankgiving turkey.  The rope shuddered.   The metal railing to which the rope was tied thrummed as the rope jerked.

                Thornton's body was only stopped for the second it took the rope to cut through his neck.  Then it began to tumble further.  A great jet of blood arose from the ragged stump of his neck.  Some of it painted the wall that had paralleled his fall. Some more pattered on the ground with a sound like rain. Thornton's body fell an additional twenty feet.  For a moment the headless corpse stood upright when it hit the ground.  Then it swayed and fell forwards, blood spraying the sidewalk with the last few beats of Jeremy Thornton's heart.  His bound arms and legs trembled in a final seizure.  Passersby stopped and stared at the horror that had suddenly interjected itself into the busy Boston sidewalk.  A few women screamed.  Above them, Susana Alvarez Lecter's eyes gleamed with pleasure at her man.   

                There are those who have believed that decapitation does not instantly kill.  A common theory is that someone who has been decapitated may survive for perhaps ten seconds once the head has been cut from the body.  Jeremy Thornton did not help in resolving this issue.  His face contained the same look of horror and shock that it had possessed at the moment the rope ripped it free from his neck. The head itself was stuck in the noose for a moment or two until Professor Creed jiggled the rope a bit.  Then it tumbled to the ground, landing with a sound like a ripe watermelon.  It rolled into the street, where a Boston taxicab ran it over, not realizing until it was too late what it was.  This made identification difficult, as Jeremy Thornton's head now sported a rather ugly tire print on the left side of its face.  

                A group of office women were emerging from the T station on the other side of the street at the time Jeremy Thornton died.  They were celebrating the pending wedding of one of their number.  They'd already visited a few bars and clubs, and so they were already a bit drunk and merry.  In order to blackmail the soon-to-be-bride, so they said, they had brought along a video camera.  

                It turned out to be sheer dumb luck that the camera caught as much as it had.  The receptionist holding the camera had already had a few drinks and raised the camera high as she raised her arms in inebriated glee.  For this her compatriots yelled at her, stating she was wasting tape.  But she captured just about everything on tape:  Professor Creed throwing Jeremy off the balcony, the terrible drop, and the grisly aftermath.    

                The receptionist with the videocamera was fortunate enough to work for a law firm.  In panic and not knowing what else to do, she called her employers once she realized what had happened.  One of the partners, realizing what they had, assisted her in copyrighting the images before they were taken by the police.  Major TV stations and the _National Tattler _all fought for bidding rights.  It would not be until later, when the perpetrators of the crime were discovered, that the receptionist would regret selling so soon.    

                The lawyers were not unreasonable, however, and a copy of the tape was made available to the police for their investigation.  All that they requested was that the police not display any images from the tape itself.  This was granted.  In a few days, a copy would be on Lisa Starling's desk.  

                Calmly, Susana and the professor left the apartment and strolled down to the lobby.  They did not run as they left and did not attract any real notice as they entered the stairwell and proceeded down two flights of stairs, where they picked up the elevator for the rest of the ride down. They joined the crowd gathering to gawp at the headless corpse.   After spending a few minutes cutting along the edges of the crowd, they had reached the other side of the mob.  As sirens began to draw nearer, they crossed the street to the T station and got on board the subway. Above them, two police cars screeched to a halt along with an ambulance that was far too late to do anything for Jeremy Thornton other than zip him into a body bag.    Two stops later, they got off to pick up their car, which took them back to their hotel.  

                Traffic was busy, but for a woman who had learned to drive fighting traffic in Buenos Aires, hardly worth noting.  Dinner had already been sent up from room service.  The concierge at the Park Plaza Hotel had been quite helpful in arranging the delivery so it would be there when they got back.  Susana tipped him ten dollars for his trouble and thanked him very much.  Once up in the suite, Susana satisfied herself with a quick call home to check in on her son and assure she missed him and would be home soon.  Then they sat down to dinner in the suite's dining room.  

                It was lobster, and excellent by any standards.  They ate by candlelight.  Both Susana and Creed were pleased and exhilarated.  It had been a good day.         


	10. Past and Present

                The FBI office was its usual warren of activity.  Agents headed in and out to the street.  Phones rang.  Boston policemen still stood guard over the entrances and exits.    The offices set aside for the Bludgeon Man task force were just as busy as the normal duties of the FBI's Boston field office.  

                Lisa Starling's office was quiet and calm.  She sat at her desk, staring at a VCR and a video monitor that had been brought in.  The videotape of the Thornton murder had been forward to the Bludgeon Man investigation.  The murder was all BPD, but Jason had asked her to have a look, and she was willing to for his sake.  Lisa knew it wasn't the Bludgeon Man from the first time she'd seen the tape.  The victimology was all wrong.  And the MO didn't match.  A male victim instead of a female, killed very openly.  Instead of being killed quietly in his own home, the victim had been killed in a horrific spectacle.   

                And of course, the Bludgeon Man didn't have an accomplice.  

                Lisa rewound the tape a bit.  She heard excited female voices and heard the clattering of chunky heels on concrete steps.  The camera zigged and zagged crazily, making her feel a bit sick in watching it.  It zoomed in on a blonde woman smiling with embarrassment.  She wore a white baseball cap with the word _Bride _inscribed on it in purple script.  A makeshift veil covered the back.  

                "Here we are, live at the T, and we're gonna hit another couple bars," an off-screen voice said merrily.  "Susan, what do you think of all this?  Your last night as a single woman?"  

                "You guys are too much," answered the blushing woman.   

                Lisa tensed.  She knew what happened next.  The bachelorette party walked up to the street level, carousing as they went.  The view of the camcorder suddenly jerked far up and around, rendering an effect not unlike a roller coaster.  Jeremy Thornton's balcony was in the top third of the frame.  An excited cry came from the woman holding the camcorder.  

                Lisa could see one large figure holding another in his arms.  A third shorter figure stood back on the terrace, apparently watching.  Lisa focused on it and felt her tongue go dry.  She'd prayed for this not to be.  

                Then Jeremy Thornton went over the side and out of the frame.  A white line trailed where he had fallen.  Then the camcorder was coming back down, tracing alongside the building.   It caught up with Jeremy.  

                The voice of the receptionist, again, but this time her voice was tinged with shock.  "Oh my God, what the hell is that?"  

                Thornton was more or less in the middle of the frame when the rope came to an end.   There was only a brief stop, and then his body was continuing to fall.  His head remained in the noose for a moment or two.  Screams of terror from offscreen permeated the scene.  The camera jerked up again, then violently down.  

                When the camera jerked up, the edge of Jeremy Thornton's balcony was just barely in view in the top of the frame, and it was angled.  Lisa had to tilt her head to look clearly.  Two figures.  The shorter one tilted its head and waved twice from the wrist, the way one might wave byebye to a child.  A glint of gold came as the light caught a ring on the figure's hand. Then the two figures left the terrace and disappeared into the apartment. They'd been unable to enhance the video resolution any further.  Identifying the perpetrators of this would be impossible from the tape alone.   

                But Lisa knew.

                Next to the shorter figure was a light fixture mounted on the exterior wall.   The homicide investigators from Boston PD – top notch, in Lisa's view – had gone out and measured it for her.  Using that as a guide, she could estimate that the shorter figure was somewhere between five-three and five-seven.   The taller figure was probably between six feet even and six-four.  She swallowed and felt her stomach churn.  

                Susana Alvarez was five foot four.  Professor Thomas Creed was six foot two.  

                 She rewound the tape and paused it, watching the smaller figure wave byebye.   She could make out brown hair on the smaller figure.  But that meant nothing.  Hair could be dyed.   The resolution was cruddy at this distance, but she thought the figure was wearing a skirt.  Nervously, she tapped a pen and bit her lips nervously.  She didn't want it to be Susana.  That would've meant that Susana was back in the US.  If she was back in the US, she might get caught.  If she got caught, then Lisa Starling was going to lose her job, her boyfriend (_is he that now? _a little voice asked her), and trade it for a prison cell in another country.  Besides, if she was back in the US and had freed the professor, then she'd added a few more notches to her body count.  Susana had been quiescent for four years; interest in capturing her had been waning. This would fan the flames of law enforcement interest to full strength.  

                "Don't be Susana," Lisa told the figure on the tape in a low, tense voice.  "Be somebody else.  Some little fangirl he met on the Internet or something.  A Creedphile." 

                The idea was inescapable, though.    There were a lot of things that matched between Susana and the woman in the frame.  She was the right height and the right build.  The right hair color, too.  Susana tilted her head most of the time, a mannerism she had picked up from her father.  There hadn't been any forensic evidence worth mentioning in the apartment.  Susana would know how to cover for that; she didn't think Creed knew as much about criminology.   The escape of Professor Creed had been pulled off with the same sort of utter ruthlessness, military precision, and speed that hallmarked Susana's other means-to-an-end crimes.    

 And to top it off, Susana _would _probably wear a skirt to a murder. 

Her suspicions of Professor Creed had a stronger basis.  On her desk was a fax from Cornell University, where Creed had taught and Thornton had gotten his bachelor's.  It was a brief synopsis of the charges of academic dishonesty filed against Thornton by Creed.  The charges had been dismissed; understandably the university had no bylaws specifying what happened when the accusing professor was arrested for murdering several of his students.  

_No, _she thought.  _C'mon.  Please?  Four years of peace and I meet a really nice guy and I really, really don't need my cousin in my life right now. _

There was a way she could find out for sure.  She hadn't even bothered to think about it for four years.  She'd have to do it quietly.  But as she watched the videotape, she knew it was the only way she could know for sure. The worse thing was that she'd have to do it quietly.  Neither the FBI nor Boston PD could find out about it.  

Both Lisa Starling and Rinaldo Pazzi had acted contrary to the wishes of their law-enforcement masters at one point in their lives.  Of these two, Lisa Starling's rationale was more respectable.  Rinaldo Pazzi had elected to ignore his duty to bring Hannibal Lecter to justice for simple money.  Had Lisa Starling not ignored hers, she would have spent twenty years in a foreign prison and her cousin would _still have gotten away.  _

But they were both in the same situation now.  In order to verify to herself and either qualm the worries in her gut or solidify them, she could not act as a law enforcement officer.  She was a bounty hunter, outside the bounds of the law.  Normally, she could have gotten a French arrest warrant for Susana in no time at all, and all of Susana's money would not have stopped that.  But if she did so now, she would have to explain why she'd hidden it away for four long years.  And after that, an arrest warrant bearing her name would inevitably come to the FBI.  

Nervously, staring at the screen with glassy eyes, Lisa Starling arose from her chair and walked out of the FBI's Boston field office.  The Boston policeman on the front door guard looked at her warily as she left.  

"I'm just running out for some lunch," she explained.  

"You want an escort?  Here, I'll call you one," he said, lifting his walkie-talkie.  

Lisa's heart began to pound.  "No, that's okay," she said.  "Look, this is all well and good, but I'm a big girl.  And I'll be back in ten minutes.  Working lunch."  

"Okay," the guard said, raising an eyebrow.  

Lisa headed out onto the sidewalk and swallowed nervously.  She'd have half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, before she was missed.  Her stride was quick and nervous and her stomach roiling as she headed for the T station.  It wasn't that far to the Blue Line.  Lisa hopped on the train and sat down, listening to the shriek of the train as it squealed against the rails.  The T was nicely anonymous, more than her car – with the concurrent check-out with the parking-lot cops – would have been.  The train car was pretty full, but she managed to find a seat. 

This was madness.  She was breaking the peace that had held for so long.  And Susana hadn't broken it.  Had she?  _Please God no.  Or was it simply Lisa's own desperate attempts at self-delusion?  She had a good job, now she'd met a nice guy.  Who knew where things were going, but he was nice and seemed interested in her.  And now, Susana appearing in her life again, bringing with her the shadowy threat of twin prison cells, one for each woman.  Why hadn't the deal been enough for Susana?  Hadn't it kept the peace for this long? _

She got off at the stop for Logan Airport.  Fifteen minutes now.  The airport was also full, also quite anonymous, and no one paid any attention at all to the blonde woman in a blue suit as she entered the Departing Flights area.  If she actually went to the departure gates, she'd attract attention because she would have to declare her weapon, but she had no intention of going there.  

Lisa followed the signs for the baggage claim instead.  Her heels clacked noisily against the floor, but no one paid her the slightest heed.  Against the wall was the first thing she sought.  A vending machine, selling prepaid phonecards.  Lisa approached it and fumbled in her purse for some money.  She settled on a twenty-dollar card, not knowing how much it would be to call France.  

How far ahead was it there?  Would it still be open?  She wasn't sure.  The machine took her twenty and spat a plastic card out at her.  She picked it up and examined the instructions printed on one side.  There were plenty of phone booths by the baggage claim.  Hopefully it would work.   She selected an empty one and consulted the card again.  There was a 1-800 number she had to dial, which was good.  Just in case they tracked it, they'd see the 800 number and have to chase down the records through the long-distance company.  

A sudden lump rose in Lisa's throat.  She dialed the number and then punched the country code for France.  The numbers she dialed were written down nowhere; they were engraved instead in Lisa Starling's memory, where no other FBI agent would ever be able to find them.   Lisa had tracked her cousin down to France as doggedly as she had tracked her down in Virginia.  But then, once she'd obtained her cousin's name and information, she'd been stopped.  If Susana were caught, Lisa would go down with her.  So with no small regret she'd committed her cousin's information to memory and then burned the papers.  Only once – for Susana's kid's first birthday – had Lisa dropped by, just so Susana would know Lisa had her.  Ever since then, she'd remained solely on her side of the Atlantic.   

 Electronic beeps and boops sounded in her ear as she dialed the rest of the numbers.   Her hand stopped a few times and she found she had to force herself to dial.__

Madness, _madness._

The phone rang a few times.  It sounded different from phones in the States.  Lisa tapped the card against the phone and shifted from foot to foot nervously.  What was she going to say?  

Suddenly the phone was picked up.  Lisa started and gripped the handset tighter.  Her cousin's voice sounded in her ear for the first time in four years.  

"Suzanne Arsenault Lesage," her cousin said calmly.  

"Susana?" Lisa whispered.  

Susana did not seem to realize it.  Instead, she answered with a flood of French that Lisa didn't even try to catch.  Lisa repeated her cousin's name a few more times before realizing what had happened.  Voicemail.  She was listening to the voicemail box of the only woman on the FBI's Ten Most-Wanted List.  

Lisa flushed red as she realized what had happened.  She thought she'd heard something about 'receptionist' and 'zero' in there, so she hit zero.  French voicemail systems couldn't be that different.  She was rewarded by an electronic tone and a synthesized voice that told her something she couldn't understand.  She hoped like hell that it was 'Your call is being transferred'.  

Then there was a human voice answering the line, also speaking in French.  

"Excuse me," Lisa said, feeling suddenly quite dumb.  "Do you speak English?"  

The voice paused for a moment.  "_Oui, I do," the young woman said in accented English.  "Are you a patient here?"  _

"No," Lisa admitted and closed her eyes.  "I was looking for someone there."  A story occurred to her.  "Well, you see, I knew one of the doctors there when I was in college.  I did a semester abroad in France and we got to know each other.  I'm going to be going to Paris in the next few weeks, and I wanted to know if she wanted to get together for coffee or something."  

It took the girl a few moments to respond, and Lisa wondered if she understood everything. 

"And which doctor was it you were looking for?"  she asked.  

"Dr. Lesage.  Suzanne Arsenault Lesage," Lisa supplied.  Hearing her own voice speak that name made her shiver.  

"Oh," the girl said instantly.  "I am so sorry."  Her accent transformed the last word into something mystical.  "Dr. Lesage is not in ze office."  

Lisa's throat hitched.  Her knees jellied.  "Oh," she said, forcing herself to remain calm.  "Is she in surgery?  I can try her back later."  

"_Non, I….__Pardon.  Dr. Lesage is not here.  She went to a surgical conference for a week.  The voice paused before delivering the final blow to Lisa's last clinging hope.  "In the United States.  Philadelphia.  Would you like ze number to her hotel?"_

All the pieces fell into place in Lisa Starling's mind, and tears rose to her eyes.  

Dr. Lesage attending a surgical conference in Philadelphia.  A perfectly normal bit of cover that would have attracted absolutely zero attention from any immigration officer in any airport in the United States.  She knew better than to even try and call INS and ask if a Suzanne Arsenault Lesage had entered the country.  Susana knew better than that.  But it would be a French doctor somewhere, with impeccable papers both real and fake.  

She'd gone to Philadelphia.  Philadelphia, where a woman named Elisa Chesoyo who claimed to be Thomas Creed's cousin lived. Elisa Chesoyo, whose name meant _Hey Lisa, it's me in Argentine slang. And who had never had a driver's license, Social Security number, or any minutiae of existence except a prepaid cell phone.  A cell phone that Professor Creed had called a few days before he escaped.  The __very first family phone call the good professor had made since he went to Death Row.  He'd told her where he was going.  From there, Susana had merely needed to plot out the probable route, waylay the van, and carry out her usual precision raid.  _

_Susana is here.  Susana did this.  _

_And she's in this city.  _

"No, thank you," Lisa replied robotically.  Her voice sounded far away.  She hung up the phone and stood there trembling in the busy airport for several minutes.  

_What the hell does she want?  _

…

                The time was approaching.  He'd felt better for a few weeks since his last job.  _A job.  That made him feel better and more important than his actual job did.  __That was dull drudgery.  He wiped butts and changed sheets for a living.  Miserable, really.  _

                But he was beginning to feel the edginess he usually did when it was coming up on time for another one.  Some days, he had to fight the urge to scream and clamp his hands to his head.  The rage was always there, but after a job he was able to tamp it down.  

                The one old biddy he'd had to deal with at work had really tried his patience.  _Heh.  Patient trying my patience.  It was a dumb joke.  The doctors didn't have to put up with patients screaming at them.  Oh no, the patients were ready to kneel down and kiss the ass of anyone wearing a white coat.  Like they knew so damn much.  The nurses didn't get such worship, but they at least had their ways.  A patient who ticked off the nurses soon learned not to repeat whatever behavior they had done.   But __him…oh, no.  He was the lowest of the low.  An orderly.  There to change bedpans, wipe butts, change sheets.  If they let him take someone's blood pressure, that was supposed to be a good day.  _

                The Bludgeon Man sat in his living room, watching TV.  He hated the small apartment.  The rooms were tiny and confining.  They reminded him of prison.  The tiny cells he'd been obliged to occupy. Thanks to the bitch, he'd ended up serving his entire sentence in solitary confinement.  Protective custody, they'd called it.  They hadn't known how to deal with a prisoner like him.  Well, they hadn't known how to deal with what the bitch had done to him.  And then once he'd gotten to prison, and the bitch had finished the job she'd begun.  

                So he sat on the chair he'd scavenged from the curb and watched his tiny TV desultorily.   The evening news was on.   The anchorwoman was perfectly calm as a stick figure hanging from a noose appeared above her right shoulder.  The actual footage of Jeremy Thornton's death was not shown.  

                "Police still have no leads in the bizarre murder of Jeremy Thornton," the announcer said calmly.  "Detective Lieutenant Jason Sullivan of the Boston Police Department gave a brief statement today in which he stated that the murder was not considered related to the Bludgeon Man murders, but that police considered the murder to be of the highest importance.  They are still investigating.  Police did release this photograph of the believed perpetrators. "  

                A picture flashed up on the screen.  Lisa Starling would have recognized it as the man and woman on Jeremy Thornton's balcony.  The Bludgeon Man leaned forward.  He could not make out any facial features, owing to the distance and poor resolution of the videotape.  A few moments later, a composite drawing of the man, then the woman, appeared on the screen.   In all truth, they did not resemble Susana Alvarez Lecter or Professor Creed terribly well.  But the Bludgeon Man leaned forward.  

                _The bitch.  _

_                He knew almost instantly that the bitch had done this.  It was her style.  The rage rose up in him again, stronger than it had been since he'd been released from prison.  He paid no more attention to the TV.  Instead, his eyes were focused on the past, remembering the bitch and the rage and what she had done to him ten years ago._

                _He hadn't been known then as the Bludgeon Man.  No, back then, his name had simply been Darryl Schantz, and the police hadn't been tracking him.  Back then, he'd been an orderly just like now. But just as now, that had been his job.  His work had been different then.  His work had been rape.  He'd done the job on a few bitches already.  At the time of The Bitch, though, the police had just been beginning to realize that the attacks were related.  _

_                The day of The Bitch had begun as any other.  He'd gone into the hospital, just like any other day.  He worked on the surgical floor.  His contempt for everyone and everything was uncontrollable.  But his work gave him the ability to withstand this.  They might be snotty to him at work, but once he had one of 'em tied down, her underwear ripping, her eyes lit with fear, they learned their place in the world real quick.  _

_                He'd seen her then.  He hadn't known her real name and wouldn't until her capture in Virginia several years later, when he was serving his own prison term.  Back then, he'd known her as Alina Lektor, as everyone on the hospital staff did.  She was a surgical resident in her last year.  Definitely the best-looking resident on the staff.  Those maroon eyes and delicate features attracted some attention;  her trim body attracted more.   _

_                That day had been like any other for so long.  Whiny patients wanting glasses of water, trips to the bathroom, and clean sheets.  It hadn't been until much later that he'd seen her.  She was out of surgery and off shift.  She'd gone down to the doctor's lounge to change.  That was another annoying little bit of rank.  No lounge for the working joes like him; that was only for the highfalutin doctors.  _

_                Boston had been undergoing a rare heat wave, and she'd gone into the lounge wearing bloody scrubs and emerged in a short skirt and sandals with heels. Just about every male on the staff, from senior surgeon to janitor, had gotten themselves an eyeful.  She had thrown her lab coat over this ensemble and started calmly issuing orders to the nurses.   He couldn't catch everything.  The nurses simply sighed and answered "Yes, Dr. Lektor."  _

_                "Oh," she completed, walking down the hall to the elevator, "Mr. Parkfield in 123 is going to need some extra care.  He just had a colostomy and he's got arthritis in his hands.  He's going to need a hand changing his bag."  She smiled with the gallows humor that medical personnel had towards the revolting side of their job.  "Make sure you've got an orderly handy with clean sheets.  He's not a bad patient, but he's very embarrassed about it.  Try and spare his dignity, he's really a polite man."  _

_                "Yes, doctor," the charge nurse said.  Darryl's eyes touched the eyes of the woman he knew as Alina Lektor.  She smiled at him calmly, the vaguely patronizing smile of a woman who knows she is better than the man she is looking at.  Part of him wanted to gag.  So, he got to change the shitty sheets of her old-geezer patient, huh?  He'd show her.  He was a man, not her personal shit-boy.  _

_                To make matters worse, Mr. Parkfield did indeed spill his colostomy bag.  It freaking **reeked**.  He ought to sue the hospital; these were unsafe working conditions. And meanwhile, Dr. Alina Lektor was at home, kicking back in front of her TV or with her boyfriend or something.  She'd have a rich guy – another doctor or a lawyer or something.  No way would she ever deign to even talk to him.  _

_                After he cleaned up the room, he found himself much calmer.  One of the nurses complimented him on cleaning up the crap and told him he was a good guy.  Darryl Schantz was quite calm as he accepted her compliment.  _

_                "Just my job," he said.  _

_                For the rest of his shift, he was preternaturally calm.  He got new scrubs and washed up.  He was pleasant to the patients, even old shitty Parkfield.  At eleven o'clock, he punched out and headed home.  By that time, a large grin crossed his face.  _

_                He had been able to put up with the shift because he'd decided to punish Alina Lektor.  A few women had already learned what it meant to learn humility at the hands of Darryl Schantz.   He wasn't quite as psychotically violent as he would be ten years later, once he was released on an unsuspecting world, but he took proud snotty bitches and made them weeping, violated victims.  Good for them to learn.  At the time, Boston PD was beginning to connect the dots of his crimes.   Although he didn't know it, a young agent at the FBI's Boston office, planning a career move to Quantico shortly, had been asked to have a look at the crime scenes and see what she could tell them.  _

_                Darryl Schantz was not yet the Bludgeon Man.  But he had already developed a lot of the techniques he would use once he became the Bludgeon Man years later.  He put together his rape-kit, consisting of restraints, some weapons, and drugs.  He'd scored the muscle relaxant and pentathol separately a few months back.  Alina would learn, all right.  She wasn't the only one who knew how to use drugs. Alina.  He wouldn't bother no more with calling her 'Doctor'.  She'd be on a first name basis.  Maybe he'd make her call him 'Mr. Schantz'.  That'd be a good comedown for her.  But for him, she'd be Alina._

_                It wasn't until years later that he would learn that Alina Lektor was the pseudonym of Susana Alvarez Lecter, hiding in plain sight as was her admittedly arrogant wont.  Plenty of people joked about it upon hearing the name.  No one – including him – knew that the resemblance in the name was deliberately engineered, and that Alina Lektor was indeed Hannibal Lecter's daughter._

_                Finding her home address was not terribly difficult – he knew the janitor and was able to borrow the keys to the closed HR office without much problem.  She lived in a townhouse in Back Bay.  That alone Darryl found incredible.  A resident?And she lived on Commonwealth Ave?  Darryl did not know that she owned the home outright through a cover identity, but the address was enough.  He lived in a tiny apartment in a slummy area.   And she had all that?  Oh, she had to learn._

_                He packed up his kit in a backpack and threw it on his shoulder.  The T allowed him to get close enough to her place; he'd walk the rest.  No one paid any real heed to the man in jeans and a T-shirt, walking through the streets calmly, minding his own business.  Even as he made it to Back Bay, no one looked twice at him. Had he loitered or glowered at anyone, they might have noticed him, but he didn't.  He just headed up the sidewalk.  His purposes remained safely hidden in his skull.  _

_                He stared at Alina Lektor's home bitterly, knowing that he'd never have a home like that.  Well, he'd teach the little bitch a lesson.  Calmly, he walked up and knocked on the door.  She'd know who he was, so he couldn't tell her he was UPS or something.  But he'd tell her there was something up with one of her patients.  That'd allay her suspicion long enough for him to get the door open.  Then it would be party time.  _

_                He knocked on the door and waited.  He shifted his bag on his shoulder.  In one hand, he gripped the barrel of the syringe.  Pentathol to put her down, just like they did in the OR.  A few moments later, the delicate features and maroon eyes of Alina Lektor stared out at him.  _

_                "Hello?" she asked, and then started in surprise as she recognized him.  A look of puzzlement mixed with distrust came over her face.  "Darryl?  What are you doing here."  _

_                "Um, well, Dr. Lektor, I was in the neighborhood and I recognized your car on the street," he said, the lie coming easily to his lips.  "Some guys were trying to break into it.  I ran them off, but I wanted to let you know."  _

_                "Oh."  She tilted her head and observed him carefully. "Is it damaged?"   _

_                Darryl was tense but calm, looking back and forth.  He'd seen her driving before.  She had a black Jaguar convertible.  _

_                "Little scratch on the paint but it's not too bad.  They were about to break the window.  I yelled at em and they ran off."  _

_                "Well, thank you," she said, looking at him and weighing something in her mind.  _

_                Darryl decided the time was now and grabbed the knob.  He threw his entire body weight against it, forcing it open easily.  Alina blinked at him and staggered back.  He came out with the hypodermic and grinned.  The needle gleamed overhead.  For just a moment, Alina Lektor looked as frightened and surprised as any woman attacked in her own home. _

_                "Gonna teach you something, bitch," he grunted.  _

_                But Alina Lektor was not like the others.  She was Susana Alvarez Lecter, a woman capable of atrocities beyond Darryl Schantz's rather pedestrian horrors.  And she reacted swiftly.  As he jabbed the needle down, she grabbed his wrist.  Amazing strength clamped down on his wrist.  She brought her foot up and jammed it into his side, twice.  She still wore the spike-heeled sandals, and he felt the heel jab twice into his stomach and grunted in pain. On his shirt two red flowers began to bloom.   _

_                She twisted his wrist neatly and he heard a snap.  The syringe fell to her foyer floor.  A bolt of agony shot up his arm.  His right hand went limp in her grasp. He tried to turn and run, just get the hell away, but her grip on him was too strong.  She grabbed the back of his head and rammed his forehead into an oak shelf on her wall.  Stars flew before his eyes.   _

_                He only barely felt the needle prick his arm.  His own needle.  How humiliating.  But then consciousness spun slowly from him and everything whirled into a pool of black.  _

_                When he awoke, he wasn't in her home anymore.  It looked like an abandoned factory or something.  Dirty gray walls and junk all around.  He was lying on a cot, his wrists tied to the sides with duct tape. Another piece covered his mouth.  His broken wrist was neatly splinted with two pieces of wood and duct tape.   _

_                Susana Alvarez Lecter stood over him.  There was something different in her face, something he had never seen before.  During her residency, Susana had learned to act appropriately, just as her father had during his.  Surgery suited her.  She treated her patients with clinical care and concern. She disliked losing patients, even though it happened in surgery, and was determined to keep it as low as possible.  Rarely, an older man who reminded her of her father might gain special favor from her.  Her entire reason for becoming a doctor was because she thought he would have approved.  _

_                But now, she was not in her detached, clinical surgeon persona – her Alina personality, as she thought of it.  No, for the first time since she'd returned to medical school after pulling a bullet out of her cousin's chest, she was Susana again.  Her eyes bored into his.  A sardonic smirk crossed her face. _

_                "Well, Darryl," she said, "looks like you've been a naughty boy."  In one hand she held his bag and she emptied it out.  "Quite the little kit you've put together. You've put a lot of thought and work into this, haven't you?" _

_                "Let me up," he snarled.  _

_                She ignored him.  "Too bad your victim selection skills aren't as up to scratch."  She chuckled and shook her head.  "Boy, did you ever pick the wrong girl."  _

_                "Let me up, you cunt," he growled.  _

_                Susana looked down and him and smiled an irretrievably cold smile.  _

_                "Cunt," she repeated.  "You use that word expecting me to recoil and cower in fear.  I can assure you, that won't work with me."  _

_                "What the hell do you think this is?" he asked.  "Let me up now, bitch, or you will cower in fear."  _

_                "Not from you," she replied airily.  "Darryl, old boy, I'll tell you, I never once thought that one of my coworkers was a serial rapist."  She chuckled coldly.  "I was going to be your number four, was it?"  _

_                A slight shiver traveled down his spine.  How the hell had she known that?  Was she gonna go to the cops?  Naw, she couldn't possibly.  _

_                She saw the unspoken question and answered it.  "Sodium pentathol, Darryl.  You must've waited until the drug lockup was unguarded, didn't you?  I have my own supply, you know.  I'm allowed to, but that's another thing entirely. I gave you your own shot, and then started you on some more post-op.  Not enough to put you to sleep."  She chuckled again.  "But enough to make you answer a few questions for me."  She reached over his head and removed a cassette from a cassette player.  _

_                "You owned up to quite a bit, Darryl."  _

_                "Don't mean shit."  _

_                "Oh yes, it does.  Do you have a good attorney, Darryl?  I hope and trust that you do.  You're going to need one."  Her expression changed, and suddenly the sardonic expression was gone from her face.  Her contempt for him was real and not at all humorous.  _

_                "I find men like you revolting," she said.  "Things like that disgust me.  Quite simply I believe you belong in prison, Darryl…and I don't say that lightly." _

_                 Prison. Shit. She was right:  he couldn't afford a lawyer and he'd end up having to cop a plea.  Just another way that guys like him ended up getting the shaft.  Maybe he could talk her out of it. Sweat beaded up on his brow.  He tried to look pathetic.  "Listen," he said.  "I got problems.  I'll get help.  I'll never do it again, I swear."  _

_                The sardonic expression came back to Susana Alvarez Lecter's face.   _

_                "Oh, I agree with you there, Darryl," she said coldly.  "You'll never do it again." _


	11. Reunion

                Jason Sullivan sighed as he took out his apartment keys.  The Bludgeon Man investigation was going nowhere.  They didn't have diddly on the guy.  And according to the spooks at Behavioral Sciences, the guy was gonna hit again, soon.  His cycle was getting shorter, too.  Meant they'd be dealing with another crime scene and another broken body soon.

                The detective found himself wondering about Lisa.  She seemed like a really nice chick.  He knew that there were a few people making jokes about him shacking up with her, but hell, it was necessary.  That Creed guy was bad news.  Besides, she was nice.  He didn't know what would come down the road – eventually, Lisa Starling was gonna pack up and move back to Washington where she lived.  But it was fun, he liked her, and for now he was happy to enjoy her company.  For the past couple of days, though, she'd been real jumpy.  Like she'd seen a ghost or something.  Every time one of the cops guarding the apartment knocked on the door, she'd jump practically through the roof.  He'd asked her what was up and gotten polite demurrals in return.  

                He opened the apartment door and glanced curiously at the uniformed cop sitting in his living room.  It didn't bother him that there was a stranger sitting on his couch.  That came with the territory.  The important thing was protecting the FBI's Behavioral Science people.  Lisa was still at the office.  One of the Boston cops surrounding the office had told him.  For her part, Lisa carped good-naturedly that she couldn't do much without him knowing.  

                But for the past couple of days she just seemed so…_haunted.  _Something was up.  He hoped she'd fess up.  Detective Lieutenant Sullivan had gotten plenty of confessions in his time.  Confessing itself could be very, very calming and relaxing for someone under stress.  Sometimes, when he'd felt it appropriate, he'd try to go to bat for a defendant who needed it.  Maybe Lisa needed to talk.  He'd go to bat for her if he had to.  

                "Where's Alvarez?" he asked the uniform.  Tall guy.  Blond.  Sullivan didn't recognize him.  

                The guy looked nonplussed for a moment.  "He had to go," he said finally.  "I'm taking over in his place."  

                Jason nodded and sat down at his computer.  The Creed escape had really gotten to Lisa.  Maybe he ought to have a look.  Lisa had told him there was a VICAP file he could get to.  He had a username and password.   He fired up a web browser and surfed to the FBI's web site.  In a moment he was at the Ten Most-Wanted List.  

                There it was, on the left side.  The first entry was that of a brunette who resembled Lisa.  She was smirking in the four-year old mugshot.  _Susana Alvarez _was written in underlined blue letters under her name.  Under that was a picture of a studious looking man, staring solemnly into the camera.  He had the tiniest pupils Detective Sullivan had ever seen.  It reminded him of the speed freaks he'd arrested as a young cop.  Under his name was _Thomas Lawrence Creed.  _

Was that a woman humming?  Was Lisa in the bathroom?  That'd be good.  He wanted to get dinner started.  Maybe she'd feel better with some food in her.  She hadn't been eating well on the Bludgeon Man case.  Jason rather liked cooking and thought a good meal would do her a world of good.  

                "Lis?" he asked.  "That you?"  

                No reply came.  Probably somebody next door.  The walls here were thin.  No biggie.  Better that way; he could have some food ready by the time she came home.  

                He pulled up Creed's record.  The professor's tiny pupils were freaky even in the mugshot.  Under the photo and description was a paragraph labeled CAUTION. 

                _Thomas Creed committed several ritualistic murders in Ithaca, New York.  He was sentenced to death for his crimes and incarcerated in New York's Clinton Correctional Facility.  Creed was being brought to Boston to testify in federal court when he escaped.  Two federal marshals were murdered in his escape.  He is considered armed and extremely dangerous.  _

"Nice guy," Jason Sullivan said.  

Jason clicked on Susana's name.  A moment later, a larger version of her mugshot came up along with a side view of her face as well.  Under it were those aliases that Lisa had been able to crack.  Jason read her description and the large CAUTION under that.  

                _Susana Alvarez is wanted for twenty-five counts of murder.  She was allegedly responsible for the explosion of a building  in which sixteen federal agents were killed and butchered a seventeenth. She escaped custody and allegedly murdered eight more FBI agents in Behavioral Sciences as well as a civilian brought out of retirement.  She is considered armed and extremely dangerous.  _

Jason whistled.  

                "So," he said to the screen.  "You're Lis's cousin."

                "Yes," a woman's voice said.   "So she's 'Lis' now?  Once a man lops your name to one syllable, it _must _be serious."  

 Jason Sullivan turned around.  Standing behind him, in the flesh, was the woman whose picture was on his monitor.   Her maroon eyes sparkled at him. "I just _hate that picture, though.  I've thought of emailing the FBI a better one to use.  Do you think they'd do it?"   _

                Jason threw only the briefest of glances over at the uniform cop before reaching for his gun.  But Susana was faster.  Her hand flashed down. The thin silver of a needle stung his throat.  Susana left the hypodermic dangling from his throat and grabbed his gun hand, keeping it pointed away from her.  She covered his mouth with her free hand.    

                The uniformed cop stood and ran over.  Jason glanced at him mutely.  His vision was beginning to blur.  The cop simply grabbed his hand and simply pried the automatic from his grip.  His other hand locked down on Jason's shoulder and held him in the chair.  

                A look of shock came over Jason Sullivan's face as consciousness began to give into the black.  Then he looked into the cop's face, saw the tiny pupils, and he understood.  But it wasn't him they were here for: clearly, it was Lisa.  

                _Jeez, I'm sorry, Lis, _he thought, and then he went limp. 

                …

                _I should be working on the Bludgeon Man, _Lisa Starling scolded herself.  But she was on to something.  Professor Creed's escape had clearly been planned.  He'd carried on plenty of correspondence, but none of it mentioned anything about an escape.  The cryptographers had found nothing after reviewing the letters they had.  Lisa had figured that Creed's code would have been easier to deal with, something that didn't take too much work.  Creed was observed;  they'd have noticed him doing calculations or plotting something out.  Now she might have cracked the code that Creed had used with his accomplice.  

                While Professor Creed had been on death row, he had been under constant electronic surveillance.  Every moment of his day was observed via videocamera.  There were some still pictures that had been cut from the thousands of frames, and a few of them were in his folder on VICAP.  In a few of them, she had noticed a square piece of paper taped to the wall of his cell. 

                It had taken her a few round of squinting at it to realize it was a painting.  She'd called Clinton Correctional Facility to see if she could get a copy of it or if one of the guards had known what it was.  The level of art appreciation among small-town prison guards was relatively low, but eventually she'd been able to get that it had been a picture of the Last Supper.   Jesus and all his disciples gathered around him.

                It hadn't been in Professor Creed's belongings when his cell had been inventoried.  Most of his correspondence and books had been.  Most probably , the professor had destroyed it along with the letters that he hadn't wanted the authorities to find.  Therefore, it was a lead.    

                Searching for the painting on the Web had gotten her a reasonably good copy of it.  It was Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper.  But that wasn't all it had been. Lisa had printed a copy of it and punched out the eyes of the disciples in the painting wherever she could find them.  Tiny printed eyes littered her desk.  She supposed she was going to hell for that, but she had found something quite interesting.  

                She had copies of the letters that Creed had sent and received.  The letters from John Martin and Regina Schacht were exactly what she thought they were:  red herrings.  Creed had destroyed them to smokescreen the ones he really wanted to hide.  The letters from Marie Lavelle in Paris.  

                Once she had blinded all of Jesus's disciples as well as the Savior himself, she had held the printout of the painting over the Lavelle letters. And there it was.  

                What had seemed to be a chatty letter was actually a coded message.  The appropriate letters popped up under the cut-out eyes.  The coded messages were terse.  The professor signed off with his last name.  Marie Lavelle did not sign her coded messages at all. 

  A letter he'd written five months ago asked WHO IS BLUDG MAN.  HAVE HEARD ON NEWS BUT VERY LITTLE.  CREED. 

The return letter, typed, read KILLER FROM BOSTON.  OFFER TO HELP FBI.  ASK FOR STARLING.   DEMAND HER AND HER ONLY.   Creed had then asked WILL THEY BITE? CREED.  The reply to _that _had made Lisa shudder.  LISA WILL.  SHES A GIRL SCOUT.  

                HOW DO YOU KNOW BLUDG MAN? CREED asked another letter. 

                DON'T ASK MY DEAR.  WILL FOLLOW WITH BLUDGMAN MO.  

                GIVE BLUDG MAN MO TO ESTABLISH BONAFIDE WITH LS? ALL MY LOVE. CREED.

                OUI.  BLUDG MAN USES DRUGS TWICE.  HOSPITAL GRADE SEDATIVE AND MUSC RELAXANT.

                Some of them dealt with other minutiae of escape.  Even in this, there was some chattiness and warmth that seemed absolutely bizarre.   It seemed almost like something off the Discovery Channel.   This was how two highly intelligent sociopaths dealt with each other in private, here in the tiny cracks of the letters they used as cover.  It was spooky.  Even the chattiness was spooky, as if they had learned so well to emulate normal people that a bit of it had become real.  This, here, was pure Susana and pure Creed.  There was some sarcasm, but here they were using it as humor.  There was no masking or artifice, as sociopaths were wont to do.  The grammar was usually correct if terse, and occasionally they managed to squeeze in proper punctuation.  __

                I NEED YOUR SIZES THOMAS.  SHOES INSEAM WAIST AND JACKET. 

                THAT'S SOMEWHAT FORWARD DON'T YOU THINK?  11 SHOE, 44 LONG SUIT.  32 INSEAM AND 30 WAIST. CREED.

                YOU KEEP THE WEIGHT OFF NICELY.  YOU'LL LIKE YOUR SUIT.  PICKED IT UP TODAY.  BY THE WAY, BOXERS OR BRIEFS?

                OTHER PRISONERS HERE WOULD BE ASKING FOR YOUR MEASUREMENTS YOU KNOW.   EITHER WILL DO.   CREED.

                THAT'S WHY I'M NOT WRITING TO THEM!  USE YOUR IMAGINATION FOR NOW.  I WAS ON THE TATTLER'S WEB SITE AND FRONT PAGE WHEN I WAS CAUGHT. TERRIBLE PICTURE THOUGH.  I SHOULD GUT THEM.

                NO WEB ACCESS HERE.  I COULD TRY AND TRADE FOR ONE BUT THAT WOULD CAUSE SUSPICION.  ALL MY LOVE CREED.

                YOU POOR THING, I GUESS IMAGINATION WILL HAVE TO DO.   I DO HAVE TO HAVE SOME MYSTERIES YOU KNOW. 

                TRADED WITH THE FELLOW IN THE NEXT CELL FOR AN OLD TATTLER.   YOU'RE QUITE BEAUTIFUL.  CREED.

                IF IT'S THE PICTURE OF ME BEING BROUGHT INTO COURT IN THE DARK SUIT I'LL HAVE YOUR FRIEND IN THE NEXT CELL CARVED UP WITH A LINOLEUM KNIFE.

                Lisa made a note on her memo pad to see if any Death Row prisoners had been attacked, with linoleum knives or otherwise.  Most women might have made such a threat in jest.  If Susana had said such a thing, she probably meant it very literally.  

                Hitting Susana's VICAP file revealed what she was talking about, although Lisa knew the picture well. It had been taken at Susana's trial, shortly before her escape.  Susana was being escorted to the defense table by a guard.  Most prisoners were granted the right to appear in court in civilian clothes if they wished, and the judge in Susana's trial had granted her the same right.  Susana wore a dark suit in the picture, fitted and tailored as had been the fashion then

                It wasn't a flattering picture, Lisa had to agree.  Susana's hands were manacled behind her and she was being forced to bend over awkwardly while the guard removed her handcuffs.  The skirt was a few inches above the knee.  She looked more like an executive than a multiple murderer.   It was pretty obvious that the guard was bending Susana over to humiliate her, forcing her to stick her butt out towards the TV cameras.  From the look of anger and shame on Susana's face, the guard had succeeded.  Lisa had sympathized with Susana on that.  As Lisa recalled, they'd found that guard dead in her own home, tortured to death with hot coals.  Well…pissing Susana off needlessly _was _a pretty stupid thing to do.    

                DON'T GUT HIM MY DARLING.  HE'S BEEN SENTENCED TO DEATH AND HAS NO ONE LIKE YOU TO GET HIM OUT.  DOESN'T THAT SUFFICE?  

                IF HE'S GIVING OUT THAT PICTURE, LETHAL INJECTION IS TOO HUMANE A PUNISHMENT!

On to more recent letters.  As things got more recent, they became much terser.  There were less cute jokes or anything chatty as things kicked into high gear.

                WILL THEY TAKE ME OUT OF HERE TO BOSTON?  EXTREMELY HIGH SECURITY HERE.  THEY DON'T LET ME GO FOR PIZZA YOU KNOW.  AML CREED

                FBI CAN DO A LOT MORE THAN THEY LET ON.  CONVINCE LS AND THEY WILL SPRING YOU TO TESTIFY.

                FREE HOW?  SECURITY IN BOSTON WILL BE EXTREMELY HEAVY IF NOT WORSE.   CREED.

                NOT IN TRANSIT.  BEHAVE YOURSELF AND THEY WONT USE SO MANY GUARDS.  I CAN TAKE CARE OF IT.

                HAVE BEEN GOOD.  GETTING READY TO WRITE LS.  SHE WAS ON TASK FORCE THAT CAUGHT ME BTW.   CREED.

                SHE IS GOOD THAT WAY.  GOOD TRACKER.  GLAD I HAVE HER OFF MY TRAIL. 

                Lisa inhaled sharply, reading _that_. Finding out how serial killers acted amongst each other was weird enough.  Being mentioned by name in their conversations was unnerving.  Then, the last couple of letters.  

                WROTE LISA.  WAITING FOR HER TO TAKE BAIT.  WILL BE DESTROYING THESE LETTERS ALONG WITH TWO OTHER PEOPLES TO HIDE THEM.  CREED.  

                SHE WILL.  I WILL MOVE INCOUNTRY WHEN SHE HAS FIRST STAGE.  GOOD IDEA THOMAS.

                SHE CAME. I GAVE HER THE FIRST STAGE. SHE WAS MAD BUT WILL BE BACK. ALL MY LOVE. CREED.

                The final letter from Marie Lavelle had been posted a week before Creed's escape.  It was longer, and Lisa found herself nervous.   It was also the only one signed, the way Creed had signed off on some of his.  

                MOVING INCOUNTRY.  NO FURTHER MESSAGES VIA THIS CHANNEL.  AWAIT POSTCARD WITH FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.  I'LL SEE YOU VERY SOON THOMAS…FREEDOM AWAITS.  AS DO I.  FREEDOM IS SWEET, AND I DO KNOW HOW YOU FEEL.  STAY CALM.  ALL MY LOVE.  SUSANA.

                The letters themselves creeped Lisa out, and the near-perfect verification that Marie Lavelle was Susana was enough to freak her out.  It meant she couldn't go after Creed.  But she felt oddly elated.  This was almost like a serial-killer Rosetta Stone.  The article on this could be amazing.  Did Susana, after all, feel love?  Did she love Creed?  Did he love her?   Was that it?  Jesus, nothing in Susana's file had ever suggested she would do something like this.  

                She couldn't exactly tell Behavioral Sciences, since anything that might track down Susana would lead to a lot of misery for herself.  But perhaps Jay might think it was neat.  

                She froze.  She couldn't tell _him.  _He was a good cop.  He hadn't ever let a killer go free.  She supposed she'd have to tell him someday. But heck, she didn't know where things were going.  Well, they could get some food at least.  

                So she headed home without too much ado, putting her papers in her briefcase where she could keep an eye on them.  The ride home on the T was uneventful.  Lisa had her own key to the apartment and opened it.  A uniformed cop was there.  

                Jason wasn't around, which was odd.  Lisa stepped inside and looked around with a puzzled look on her face. She looked up at the cop.  

                "Do you know where Detective Sullivan is?" she asked.  

                "Inna kitchen," he grunted, looking away from her.  

                Lisa stepped forward into the kitchen, turning her back on the uniformed cop.  Behind her, Professor Thomas Creed removed a second syringe.  He grabbed her hair and forced her head to the side.   He wasn't a doctor by trade, but his hobbies had told him where her carotid artery was.  He jabbed the needle in and pressed the plunger.  Then he relieved Lisa Starling of her gun while she was still surprised.  

                "What the--," Lisa Starling said, and her knees sagged and the world went black.  

                When Lisa awoke a few minutes later, she was sitting in one of Jason's kitchen chairs.  Her hands were cuffed behind her back.  There was a piece of duct tape over her mouth.  Jason Sullivan sat across from her, similarly restrained.  He looked sick.  Professor Thomas Creed lounged over them easily.  He smiled at her.  

                "Agent Starling," he said in that soft voice.  "Good to make your acquaintance again.  I did so enjoy our conversations in my visiting booth.  And here we are, in Boston, although not as it was supposed to be."  

                Lisa Starling's eyes went wild and she tried to scream through the duct tape.  Professor Creed grinned.  

                "I must make a confession, though," he said.  "I'm afraid that when I was telling you about the Bludgeon Man that my information was second-hand."  

                From the hallway echoed footsteps.  A silhouette appeared in the doorway and stopped.  Lisa tensed.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter took a few steps closer and eyed her cousin for the first time in four years.  Lisa's hands clenched into fists.  Susana grinned slowly.  

                "Well, I declare," Susana said softly.   "Cousin Lisa, how _are _you?  You look well.  And a new boyfriend, I take it?  We have some things…to chat about."  


	12. Devil's Bargain

                Susana pulled up a chair and sat down easily.  She eyed her cousin with a sardonic look.  Lisa's pulse raced as she watched Susana sit down easily.  For a moment the cousins watched each other without saying anything.  Then Susana grinned.  

                "Hello, Lisa," Susana said calmly.  

                Lisa watched her cousin tautly, eyes nervous above the duct tape. 

                "Lisa, I didn't come here to torment you.  But I'll put it to you this way.  Thomas bought me a Civil War amputation kit from an antique store the other day.  Different, but quite thoughtful, considering my line of work.  I'm going to take the tape off your mouth now.  If you scream, or speak in a tone of voice above normal conversational level, I'll try it out and see how it works on your boyfriend there.  Just like they did it back then: no anesthesia, no antibiotics.   Are we clear?"  Her voice was silken. 

                Jason Sullivan blanched just a bit.  Lisa closed her eyes and nodded.  

                "Are you going to scream?"  

                Lisa shook her head.  

                "All right, then.  Brace yourself."  Susana grabbed the tape and pulled it away briskly.  Lisa licked her lips, scowling at the taste of the adhesive.  

                "What are you here for?" Lisa asked in a low, quiet voice.  

                Susana raised an eyebrow.  "Why, Lisa, really.  I wanted to see how you were doing on the Bludgeon Man investigation."  She chuckled.  "Perhaps I could help."  

                "We're looking," Lisa said quickly, not wanting to give her cousin any more information than she had.  

                "For what?" Susana asked, tilting her head.  

                "We've got a profile of the UNSUB," Lisa hedged. 

                Susana chuckled.  "You _do _have to remember, Lisa, I'm not the forensic psychiatrist in the family," she said.  "I'm a surgeon.  So how about you quit trying to hide things from me and tell me about your file.  Unless you'd rather watch me practice _my _specialty."  

                Lisa paled.  She glanced across the table at Jason, who simply shook his head at her.  Was he crazy?  _Don't tell her nothing _was fine for the movies, but she knew perfectly well what her cousin would do if she didn't get what she wanted.  And bizarrely, Lisa wondered if Susana intended to help.  Her father had.  

                "Well," she said, "we're looking for a male.  Late twenties, early thirties."  

                Susana looked pleased and nodded.  "Why?" she demanded.  

                _Am I really being quizzed by a serial killer on catching another one?  _But the answer to that was clear.  Yes, she was.  It was weird.  Susana had never expressed interest in profiling before.  The only file she'd wanted to know the contents of was her own.  

                "This guy's sophisticated," Lisa said.  "He operates with a level of expertise and calmness that you don't see in younger men."  

                "I see."  Susana rose and crossed to the computer desk.  She rummaged through Lisa's briefcase.  She picked up the Bludgeon Man file and began to peruse it leisurely, as if this was her own home.  Lisa's eyes narrowed at her.  Something wasn't right.  

                _You don't know squats about how to read that file, Susana.  What the hell is this?  _

"Rather messy," Susana commented, looking at the crime-scene photos.  

                "He's very strong," Lisa said, not wanting to give Susana anything she couldn't see in the file.  Oddly, she found herself feeling safe.  Susana Alvarez Lecter enjoyed tormenting her, but she had refrained from killing her.  And if Lisa was dead, then Susana had no more protection against being found.

                "And?"  

                "Very angry."  

                "Papa _was _right," Susana remarked archly to the air, "the level of psychology practiced in Behavioral Sciences _is _on a level with phrenology."  

                Lisa gritted her teeth.  "I am working on it."  

                Susana walked over and put her hand on her cousin's chin.  She forced Lisa's chin up so that their eyes met.  

                "Lisa," Susana said calmly, "now surely you've been thinking about our…understanding."  

                "Yes," Lisa said, and froze.  Jason looked over at her with a blank look on his face.  _No, please, _she thought.  _Don't tell my boyfriend I made a deal with a cop-killer.  _

Susana looked over at the detective and smiled coldly.  Lisa's heart dropped.  Angry tears rose to her eyes.  Jason was a cop from a long line of cops.  He would _never, _never understand.  She had allowed a cop-killer to go free.  She didn't want to lose him.

                _Goddam you, you bitch, _Lisa thought bitterly.  

                "Detective," Susana said sprightly, "I'll tell you what.  It looks like you have something to say.  I'll offer you the same deal I offered Lisa.  Speak in a conversational tone of voice and we'll all get along fine.  Raise your voice or try to attract attention…and I'll choose a body part to remove from Lisa.  Do you understand?"  

                The detective looked blank, angry and afraid all at the same time.  

                "Behave yourself and she'll remain whole," Susana assured him.  

                Jason Sullivan turned slightly pale.  Then, acknowledging he was beat, he looked down at the table and nodded.  Susana reached across the table elegantly and removed the tape from his mouth.  

                "Listen," he said calmly.  "Just get out, OK?  Take what you want and get out.  You want the file?  Take the damn thing."  

                Susana tilted her head at him and grinned.  "You're forceful.  That's interesting," she said thoughtfully.  She turned back to Lisa.  

                "I'm sure by now you've put together my involvement in the escape of Professor Creed," she said, and indicated the professor standing behind her.  She held up the papers she had taken from Lisa's briefcase.  She favored Lisa with a sardonic look.  "Honestly, Lisa, do _I _read _your _love letters?"  She chuckled and sat down at the table across from her cousin.  The files went on the table in two piles. One pile was Professor Creed's.  The other was the Bludgeon Man.  

                "We had a deal, you and I," Susana said.  "I'm modifying the terms of the deal.  I want Professor Creed.  Under the same understanding you and I have."  

                "What understanding?" Sullivan asked incredulously.  His eyes met Lisa's, then Susana's.  Lisa looked away, feeling sick to her stomach. Susana held his eyes for as long as interested her.  

                "Never mind the details, Detective Sullivan," Susana said.  "If you didn't keep up, that's your own fault.  Here's my point, dear Lisa.  I'm taking Professor Creed with me.  I'm afraid even if you turn me down I'll take him anyway.  But I'm willing to offer you consideration.  A fair trade, as it were."  Her hand waved elegantly at the files.  "Tit for tat.  Man for man.  Professor Creed for the Bludgeon Man.  Let me keep _my_ serial killer and I'll give you the one _you _want."

                Lisa stared blankly at her.    "You can't possibly think I'd accept that," she said hoarsely.  

                Susana shrugged.  "Well, then.  That's your choice.  I pity to think of the victims that will die, and as I said…I'm taking Professor Creed.  All I ask is that you not pursue us."  

                Jason Sullivan leaned forward, trying to take command of the situation.  "Listen," he said.  "Look, I know you think that we might trade you.  But we can't.  We're police officers.  You'll get a trial and all.  You'll get a chance to defend yourself.  Maybe they can commute the Professor there, but there's no way we're trading for either your freedom or his."     

                Susana shrugged.  "Fine, then.  Have fun cleaning up the bodies of the Bludgeon Man's victims.  Just remember that when you see every broken, tortured corpse… that it didn't have to happen.  I'll just get on a plane and go back home.  You won't find me, _or _him.  But _I _offered."  

                She gathered up Professor Creed's file and stood up from the table.   Professor Creed observed the bound officers at the table and then turned to leave.  

                Lisa Starling let out a sigh.  One of the things she had always liked about Jason Sullivan was his moral uprightness.  He stood for everything that was just, true and right.  He didn't deal with serial killers; he arrested them.  Which is why she knew he would hate her for what she was about to say.  But she _had _to.  She could not bear the thought of turning down something that might catch an active serial killer.  

                "Susana, wait," Lisa said softly, and for the second time in her life wondered if her soul was forfeit.  

                Jason Sullivan turned and stared at Lisa with a horrified look on his face.  But Susana turned and sat back down at the table.  She seemed quite pleased with herself.  

                "Do you _really _have anything?" Lisa asked.  "For all I know, you don't know anything about the Bludgeon Man.  How do I know you can deliver?"  

                Susana chuckled.  "I see.  All right, then.  A sample."  She crossed her legs, perfectly at ease, and tilted her head.  "Haven't you noticed about the victims, Lisa?  Talk to me about the victimology."  

                Lisa paused and swallowed.  Her tongue was dry.  This all seemed to be so unreal.  But yet it was.  Her own voice was dusty at first, then calmer, as if she was briefing her own agents instead of two very dangerous serial killers.  And anything that kept Susana from talking about the deal she had made with Lisa in front of Jay was a good thing.  

                "The victims are all white females," she began, staring at the grain of Sullivan's kitchen table, not wanting to meet either Susana's eyes or her boyfriend's.   "Late twenties, early thirties.  Usually on the short side.  Short, slight women he can get control over easily."  

                "What color hair did they have?" Susana asked, a sideways grin on her face.  

                Lisa didn't have the file.  She blinked her eyes.  This couldn't possibly be real.  But she knew her own history:  a Starling consulting with a Lecter on an active serial killer.  

                _I doubt Clarice had to be handcuffed, _she thought.  

                "Brown, I think," she said finally.  

                "Exactly.  Brown.  And tell me, Lisa, did you notice anything about the ethnicity of some of the victims?"  Susana sounded interested.   She was on to something.  

                "All white," Lisa said. 

                Susana shook her head.  

                Lisa stopped and blinked.  "You've got the case file," she said.  "Look at it yourself.  Pictures of the victims are all there."  

                "The pictures, yes," Susana said.  "You looked but you did not see.  Look _deeper._"  

                "So where's your sample?" Lisa challenged.   "Quit quizzing me on the file and tell me something I don't know."  

                Susana sighed.  "You're _so _blind sometimes, Lisa," she said.  "Latinas, Lisa.  He tends to target Latinas.  Look at the victim _names.  _Morales, Medina, and here's a Hernandez.   Contrary to what you might think, not all Latinas have black hair and swarthy skin.  Why, at home, most Argentines descend from the same European immigrant stock as most Americans."  Her maroon eyes fixed her cousin's.  

                An inkling began to stir Lisa's belly.  She ignored it for now.  

                "Is the Bludgeon Man Hispanic?" she asked guardedly.  

                Susana shook her head.  "In this case, victimology will lead you down the wrong path.   I assure you he's white.  And the term du jour is 'Latina', Lisa."    

                "I'm sorry," Lisa riposted automatically.  Then she stopped.  Was the Bludgeon Man after Susana?  Why would he be?  Why would he kill _other _women then?  That didn't make any sense.  

                "Have you been looking for a prison record?"   

                Lisa nodded powerlessly.  Her eyes danced up and met Sullivan's.  There was a look of shock and disappointment on his face that pierced her through to see.  But he _had _to understand.    

                "For what crimes?"  Susana asked, reminding her bizarrely of Ralph Lima.  

                "Assault and murder," Lisa answered.  

                Susana shook her head.  "Why not rape?"  

                "We thought about it, but we were trying to narrow the search," Lisa admitted.  "And none of the victims _were _raped.  He never even tried."  

                For some reason, that made Susana laugh sardonically.  

                "Look for it," she said.  "He's committed prior crimes. Nothing major, though.  Look for one big felony conviction.  One he was recently paroled from."  Her eyes shifted over to Sullivan.  "He won't be in the FBI's files.  His crimes were stopped before he registered on the radar as a serial offender.  He'll be in _your_ files, Detective."  

                Sullivan shook his head, his eyes shielded.  "Look, maybe Lisa will talk to you, but I don't help cop-killers," he said coolly.  

                "I wasn't asking you, Detective," Susana said.  Her eyes flared at him. "I doubt you'd remember him, anyway.  Well…his _crimes.  _And such a high moral point of view!  Did it occur to you that perhaps I could help?  That just maybe, perhaps, _I _am willing to trade honestly?  Lisa can tell you:  I _do _deal fairly when it is necessary."

                Lisa Starling clamped her hands into fists.  _Why does this always happen to me? _she wanted to shriek.  _I meet a nice guy and my freaking killer cousin comes out of retirement to ruin it.  _

"Susana, _please," _she said, and her tone sounded broken.  She dared not finish the sentence.  _Please don't tell him.  _

"Yeah, look," Sullivan said, "I don't want to hear a line of bull. Either you know who he is or you don't.  Put up or shut up."  

                Susana's eyebrow raised very, very slowly as an expression of displeasure came from her face.  

                "You needn't be _rude," _she said.  

                "I'm not being rude.  I'm being blunt." 

                Lisa bounced in frustration.   Jason had no idea who he was dealing with.  Not really.   

                "You said you weren't going to deal with me, anyway," Susana said archly.  "So what do you care?"  

                "Just leave Lisa alone," Sullivan said.  "Take what you want and leave."  

                "I _want," _Susana said, "to have a word with my cousin."  

                They stared at each other across the table like gunslingers.  Lisa cringed.  She knew what Susana might do to the detective if she got angry enough.  The atrocities Susana had committed in the past flicked across her memory.   She didn't want Jason Sullivan to become Susana's latest victim.

                Professor Creed stepped forward from where he had been in the kitchen.  Surprisingly, he held a few mugs of coffee, as if this were his home and he were the host.  More surprisingly, he didn't seem to be doing anything horrible with them.  After politely offering coffee to the handcuffed captives, he squatted next to where Jason Sullivan sat.  

                "Detective," he said calmly.  Lisa found the sight of those tiny-pupilled eyes right next to her boyfriend to be nothing short of terrifying.  Professor Creed put a companionable hand on Sullivan's shoulders.  

                "Detective, if I might have a word with you," Professor Creed said, no more hurried than he had been in his cell.  "I can assure you that my fiancée's intentions here are not harmful.  The fact that you haven't been harmed yet should tell you that.  I'm sure you don't like the handcuffs, but as a police officer, you've done it to others.  Perhaps now you can appreciate what they go through better.  But that's not what I mean, Detective."  He thrust a thumb at himself and the handcuffed policeman.  "You and I?  We're Johnny-come-latelies.  These two have a…a bond, of sorts.  A bond of blood, to be sure.  And a bond of their common experience with each other.  Don't try and interfere."  He chuckled and shook his head.  "I take it you have feelings for Agent Starling, and that's fine.   To try and protect her is admirable.  I should do the same were our positions reversed."  He patted the other man's shoulder.  "Let them talk, Detective.  I assure you—man to man—that neither of us shall harm either of you, so long as you comply with the volume directive."  

                Jason Sullivan stared at the condemned killer and flexed his hands.  

                "I assure you, Detective," Professor Creed repeated.  "Not a hair on your inamorata's head will be harmed, unless you force us to." 

                "So who's the Bludgeon Man?" Lisa asked, trying to move away.   

                Susana chuckled and shook her head.  "I said I'd give you a _sample. _I have.  Look for a rape record.  But Lisa dear, you _don't _have much time.  The Bludgeon Man's about due for another victim, and whoever might that be?"  

                Lisa sighed.  "What do you want, then?  Are you going to tell me who he is or not?"  

                Susana shook her head.  "It doesn't work that way, Lisa," she said.  "As you've suspected, the Bludgeon Man is not exactly mentally stable.  He's consumed with rage.  Sick, angry, self-consuming rage.  I was expecting him to begin killing shortly after his release from prison.  He took longer than I expected.  Fortunately, Lisa, I have something you don't.  Bait, if you will.  There is someone the Bludgeon Man wants to kill, wants to kill very very badly.  Being in Behavioral Sciences, you probably think it's his mother.  That _might _be true.  I don't know enough about his early life to say."  

                "It's you, isn't it?" Lisa asked, feeling an odd sort of resignation in her belly.  "The Bludgeon Man wants to kill you."  

                Susana smiled and nodded.  

                Jason Sullivan sighed.  "So what, the Bludgeon Man…did he…you know…," 

                Susana glanced over at him and observed him casually.  "Did he rape me, Detective?" she asked bluntly.  

                Sullivan shrugged and nodded wordlessly.  

                "I appreciate your attempt at sensitivity, klutzy and confused though it was, but no.  He tried but did not succeed.  And he won't be raping anyone else, either."  

                Lisa closed her eyes.  She found herself feeling something she never would have thought she might before:  sympathy with Susana Alvarez Lecter.  No one deserved _that.  _

"You castrated him?"  she asked dully.  Internally, her mind was racing.  Susana had give her much more than she thought.  The Bludgeon Man had a record for rape.  If Susana had castrated him, that _had _to be in prison records.  How many castrated men could there be in a prison, anyway?  

                Susana looked vaguely annoyed.  "Anyone could have done _that_," she said.  "_I _am a graduate of Harvard Medical School."     

                Lisa took a deep breath.  Had she done what Lisa thought she had?  

                "You mean you…," Lisa began and trailed off. 

                "Not only will he never rape anyone again," Susana said lightly, "he got to see what it was like for himself.  I'm afraid the term 'Bludgeon Man' is a bit of a misnomer…he may like bludgeoning, but he's not a man any more.  Well, externally, that is."  She chuckled and stood up.  

                "I know I've given you enough to find out his name, Lisa," she continued.  "But you know perfectly well that finding his name and catching the man are two different things.   He's learned a few tricks of his own.  Just enough to make finding him take a bit of time.  Trust me and I can catch him for you quickly.  If you decide to play your own game, fine, so be it.  But you know his cycle; he's due for another victim soon."  

                "You know I can't promise you amnesty," Lisa said, shuddering under Sullivan's gaze.  

                "Not officially.  But unofficially you can.  Just don't bother putting out an APB on us. Don't expend too much effort in finding us.  Concentrate on the Bludgeon Man.   That _is _who you were sent here to catch.  Allow Thomas and I our freedom, and we'll be on our way shortly, never to trouble you any more."

                Susana reached for her purse and removed a ziplock bag.  In it was an ice cube.  She put the ice cube on the saucer of Lisa's cup.  There was something inside, and Lisa squinted at it.  A handcuff key.  They'd be able to free themselves, but not until Susana had ample time to leave.  

                "I'll call you shortly," Susana said.  "This offer is only open for a short time, Lisa.  And you'll need to be on board too, Detective.  Otherwise, Thomas and I will go our merry way, and most likely an innocent person will die before you manage to catch him.  It's all up to you."  

                Lisa Starling sat and thought as the apartment door closed.  She had much less choice in the matter than Susana had let on.  She didn't want to go to jail herself.  Maybe that made her a craven coward, but then she'd just have to be a coward.  She didn't want to go to prison.  

                What was worse was that Susana was right.  The Bludgeon Man _was _due for another victim.  It wouldn't take terribly long at all to find out how many men had been in Massachusetts prisons who had been mutilated in the way that Susana claimed she had.  But Susana was also correct in pointing out that getting the Bludgeon Man's name and getting him behind bars were two separate things.  

                Jason would never agree to it.  For a hideous moment Lisa thought about Jay arresting both Susana and Creed, and what would happen when it came her turn.  And Susana had killed again to set Creed free.  But Susana was almost assuredly telling the truth when she said she would leave the country and not trouble Lisa anymore.  The thought of the peace returning was something she wanted so badly.  If Susana had Creed, Lisa could have Sullivan.  Quiet, peaceful, and together.  Was it so wrong of her to want that?  

                To catch one killer, she would have to let two go free.  


	13. Spinning her Skeins

                Lisa Starling rubbed her wrists and sighed.  It had been twenty minutes since Susana had left.  She'd waited until she was absolutely sure the killers had departed the premises.  Then she'd bent over the table until she could get the ice cube containing the key in her teeth.  Professor Creed had thoughtfully given both of them a cup of coffee.  She'd dropped the ice cube into the coffee and stared at it until it melted.  Getting the key out had been a bit hot, but not too bad.  A lot better than waiting.  

                Jason Sullivan shook with rage.  Lisa was slightly nervous to see it.  But it made sense; two killers had invaded his home, overcoming the defenses with ease.  As soon as Lisa removed his handcuffs he got up and began to pace back and forth.  

                "Jay, calm down," Lisa said softly.  "It's all right."  

                "All right?"  His head whipped around and he fixed her.  "Lis, are you _crazy? _Two killers off the FBI's Most-Wanted list were just here.  They threatened both of us.  _Nobody _does that to me and gets away with it."  

                "Maybe they can help," Lisa pointed out.  

                "Help my ass.  We don't _need _her help anyway.  _I _got her to cough up more than she expected.  I asked her if the Bludgeon Man had raped her and she coughed up that she'd…well..," he paused.  "Do you think she's telling to truth about making the Bludgeon Man the Bludgeon Woman?"  

                Lisa sighed.  He _had _done exactly that.  That had surprised her.  Susana had indeed given them more than she had originally meant to.  Enough to give them something to run down.  Unless it was a wild goose chase.  

                "She could have done that," Lisa said.  "But Jay, there are two problems with doing it ourselves."  

                "I don't work with cop-killers," he said, staring at her.  "And frankly I don't even see why you're thinking of it.  She killed people you work with."  

                "I want to catch the Bludgeon Man," Lisa pointed out.  "Maybe she can do that."  

                Jason Sullivan folded his arms and stared at the woman in his life.  When he spoke, his words were deliberate.   

                "She…is…a…cop…killer," he said slowly.  "I got _no _truck with that.  Creed either, he's a psycho killer who got the death penalty.  I'll track them both down and I'll arrest them both."

                Lisa thought of what would happen if Susana were arrested.  She envisioned herself in chains being flown down to Argentina to spend the rest of her days in a prison cell.   Would he come visit her?  

                She pushed it away.  "Look, we can talk about that," she said, trying to avoid telling him. "Jay, what if she decides to compensate for that by _helping _the Bludgeon Man?  She knows who he is.  She may not like him, but if you try and pull something she might help him get away.  What if she gives him a new identity and, say, fifty grand in cash?  It's chickenfeed to her.  She'd do it for spite."  

                Sullivan shrugged.  "Get the Bludgeon Man first.  _Then _her."  

                _Then you lose me, Jason, _Lisa Starling thought.  

                But she could convince him later.  Explain to him the price she would be forced to pay if Susana was caught.  Would it do?  Perhaps it would.  Once he was calmed down.  

                Would he approve or understand?  Or was he simply going to cast her out, as a cop who had gone rogue?  

                She couldn't think about such things now.  The Bludgeon Man might be near.  And she knew if she lost him her heart would break.  

…

                The Bludgeon Man paced his small apartment nervously.  He felt the way he did when he had too much coffee.  He was full of nervous energy.  He wanted to get out, run, beat someone, see them bleed.  It was coming time for another victim anyway.  Now this.   

                And to make it worse, what he'd always wanted was in his grasp.  The bitch.  Alina Lektor.  Susana Alvarez Lecter.  She was _here _again.  The woman who had quite literally taken his manhood from him was back in Boston.  

                He'd read up on her in prison.  She'd been caught and held in prison herself for a couple of months, but then escaped.  Then she'd killed some FBI agents and disappeared.  Nothing like what _he _had had to suffer through.  The bitch had left him in the garage or whatever she'd done the operation on.  She'd drugged him up as she left.  The cops had shown up, and there had been his taped confession, blood samples, everything they needed.  The bitch had left notes explaining that this would all incriminate him, Darryl Schantz, in the rapes that had so far gone unsolved.  

                The DA had offered him a deal.  One count of rape, fifteen years.   He'd pled.  He had no choice.   Otherwise they'd been planning to go after him for life without parole.  Prison had been absolute hell.  Somehow, forty of the biggest, meanest prisoners at the prison they'd sent him to had gotten letters telling them all about Darryl Schantz.   What he had done…and what had been done _to _him.  

                He'd done three months in general population.  And he had learned firsthand how his prior victims felt.  Eight times.  After that, half insane with shock and revulsion, he'd asked for protective custody and done his time there.  It had been easier than facing the men who wanted to use his surgical alteration to their benefit.  

                Almost twelve years in solitary.  Nothing to do but stare at the walls and wait for single-man rec or a shower.  Occasionally, he would sit down to use the bathroom – now, he always had to – and what she had done to him would wash over him in a wave of fury.  He'd become parole-eligible but gotten turned down by the parole board. They worried about his 'ability to adjust' on the outside.  Fucking hot shit they thought they were.  Finally, they'd gotten big-hearted and let him out.  

                He'd settled in much as he had been able to.  A little bit of luck had been on his side.  He was able to get another job in a hospital by purposely misspelling his name.  Darryl Schantz would not have been able to get a job that required a background check.  Daryl Shants could.   His dumb-ass PO hadn't checked either.  It hadn't been that hard.  

                And after that, he'd tried to put his life back together.  For six months after his release he'd been pretty calm.  But eventually it occurred to him that he was irrevocably, permanently un-manned.  Susana Alvarez Lecter had taken his manhood as punishment for his attempting to rape her.  Anytime he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he saw a sad, pathetic figure.  A man who wasn't even a man.  A man estranged from his nature.  If he needed further proof of that, all he needed to do was look in his pants.  

                He rarely did.  It hurt to look.  

                Eventually, Darryl Schantz had turned to killing.  The horrible violence of the murders had given him an outlet for the rage and shame that boiled inside him.  He was not intellectual or self-analytical in nature.  It did not readily occur to him that he favored short brunettes who reminded him in some way of the bitch.  

                Now, he sat in his small, dingy apartment and paced.  He glanced around the room as if waiting for something to appear.  Nothing did.  Only the tiny furnishings he'd been able to afford once he'd gotten out of the joint.  

                The telephone rang.  The jangling tone irritated his nerves and he let out a hiss.  He approached the phone and eyed it as if it was a threatening small animal that might bite him.  Then he clenched his fist and picked up the phone.  

                "Yo," he said brusquely.  

                A woman's voice spoke.  She sounded amused and quite satisfied with herself.  "Is this Darryl?  Well, _hello, _Darryl.  It's been a while."   

                Darryl Schantz froze.  _The bitch.  _Even after twelve years, he knew her voice.  

                "What do you want?" he demanded.  

                "Oh," Susana Alvarez Lecter said, "just thought I'd check in and see how you were adjusting to life in the free world.  How was prison, Darryl?  I bet they just _loved _you."  

                "I got by fine," he said.  "What's it to you, bitch?"  

                "Oh, I have my doubts on that," Susana said.  "You see, Darryl, I was following your case all along.  Once I finished my residency, I moved on to bigger and better things.  But fortunately I had the resources to be able to keep an eye on you."   

                Darryl Schantz did not reply.  

                "Once I knew you were in prison, Darryl, I took a little bit of time and found out who were the biggest, meanest cons there with you," she said.  "I wrote forty of them, actually.  Really, all it took was taking a corrections officer out to lunch.  I told them I was writing a book.  Once I had the names, I got the addresses off the Internet.  Forty big, mean cons, Darryl.  All of them were in for life.  I wrote them a nice form letter that told them all about your…surgery."  She chuckled coldly.  "You were their _best _playmate, weren't you, Darryl?  I even managed to write your first cellmate.  I knew if I told forty people it would be around the prison in a matter of hours.  And that's how it was, wasn't it?"  

                Darryl felt rage course through him.  The bitch _had _been responsible for the hell he'd been through.  He would make her pay.  

                "I'll kill you," he snarled.  

                "I doubt that, Darryl," Susana said calmly.  "But you're welcome to try, as I'm back in town.  You know where my place is." 

                It occurred to Darryl Schantz that this might be a trap.  But he _had _to try.  He'd waited all these years for the opportunity to get even.  After everything the bitch had done to him, everything she'd _taken _from him…she would pay.  

                "Come by around nine, Darryl," Susana said breezily.  "I'll see you then." 

                "Don't you tell me what to do, you cunt," he said.  

                "Darryl, as I told you after I castrated you and made a woman out of you, that word doesn't make me cower in fear.  Try again.  But if you're too much of a coward to face me, so be it."  

                "I'll show you," he said bitterly.  

                "You do that," Susana said lightly, and hung up the phone.  She took a moment to grin at Professor Creed.  The professor watched her with some amusement.  

                "So you actually did…all that to him," he commented.  "Remind me to be extremely careful what I say around you."  

                Susana grinned at him. 

                "So what happens now?"  Professor Creed asked.  

                "We eat dinner," Susana said.  "Darryl will show up at my old townhouse around…oh…eight-thirty or so.  Maybe eight, if he really wants to try to surprise me.  More than enough time to get something to eat.  Then we call Lisa and her beau.  That detective doesn't seem to like me; I guess it's that whole cop-killer reputation I've got.  But I think he'll play along if she wants him to badly enough."  

                "That detective might backstab you," Professor Creed pointed out.  

                "Not unless he plans to be a good boyfriend and visit Lisa in prison," Susana said lightly.  "Now be a dear and call room service so we can have a bite to eat.  The sparks will be flying soon."     


	14. Confession

            _Author's note:  Here we are, another chapter of this story.  A little angst in lieu of holiday spirit.  _

            The townhouse on Commonwealth Avenue looked like any other.  It had gone unoccupied for years.  Twelve years ago, this was where Susana Alvarez Lecter had lived while she completed her residency.  After completing it, she had moved on.  The FBI had eventually tracked it down, but there was no trace of her.  

                And now, for the first time in over a decade, Susana pulled into the driveway of the townhouse and looked around.  The electric company had turned the power back on for her.  Good.  Professor Creed eyed the townhouse and nodded.  

                "A beautiful home," he said.  

                "Thank you.  It's not quite so fancy inside.  I didn't want to stick out."  Susana took out her key and unlocked the front door.  After the FBI had raided her townhouse – long after she was gone – she had sold it to another one of her identities.   While still holed up in the suite, Susana had arranged for the power to be turned on and for a cleaning company to come neaten the place up for her.  

                And they had done their job well.  The townhouse was quite neat and bright.  The refrigerator door was closed.  Susana opened it and looked inside.  There was no dust or mold to be seen in the fridge, which one might expect after it having been out of service for twelve years.  She nodded approvingly.  

                The place seemed oddly normal.  The furnishings were simple and tasteful.  It looked like any young professional might have lived here.  No one looking in would have suspected it was the home of a woman wanted for multiple counts of murder.  

                Susana had left most of the furniture here, as well as basic supplies she might need if she was ever in the area.  There were false identity documents in the closet wall of her bedroom.  There was cash hidden under the floorboards of the closet.  And there were simpler, more prosaic things:  cups, dishes, clothing, and the like.   

                Professor Creed nodded approvingly at the inside of the home.  Despite her disclaimer, the townhouse was very nice.  She had taste; even if she had throttled it back some.  And that made sense; most residents did not earn a lot of money.  

                Calmly, Susana quickly ran through the townhouse.  The cleaning service had turned down the beds.  She glanced in her master bathroom and the mirror reflected her visage for the first time in twelve years.  She unpacked a few bags. Just a few things, really.  

                Susana was confident in her ability to handle Darryl Schantz.  She knew she was smarter than he was; she was probably stronger too.  But that didn't mean she was foolish.  She unpacked a small-frame Beretta and slipped it into a holster.  Like her mother, Susana held the slightly odd belief that the single greatest contributor to the equal rights movement was Samuel Colt.  She'd never understood why more women _didn't _go armed.   

                Was Darryl too much of a coward to show?  It was possible.  When you came down to it he _was _a coward.  Instead of standing up and fighting in prison, he'd gone into protective custody.  That amused Susana; during her much briefer incarceration, her attorneys had fought to get her placed into general population, _out _of administrative segregation.  

                But she also knew that anger towards her burned deep.  After all, she'd taken a serial rapist and made a woman out of him.  Perhaps now she'd finish the job; breast implants weren't _that _hard to put in.  

                Well, if Darryl wimped out on her, she'd simply give Lisa something cryptic to hold her over until Susana was safely out of the country.  Her boyfriend gave Susana a bit more pause.  He seemed to be more gung-ho.  She supposed Lisa would set him straight.  

                She called Darryl's home number again from her cell phone.  It rang fifteen times.  Susana assumed that to mean he was coming.  Now it was just time to get little Lisa here and watch the fun.  

                …

                A cup of coffee and a neck rub had done a bit to calm Jason down, and Lisa was a bit more pleased.  For a moment she found herself wondering.  She'd never quite understood why her mother had tried so hard to mollify her father when he got mad.  She'd always thought she would be different with her own husband.  But then work had gotten in the way, and she'd been more interested in climbing the ladder at the FBI.  She'd done pretty well, she thought, putting away a few serial killers over those years – including both Susana and Professor Creed.  

                Now she had a man in her life for the first time since…what? College?  And there it was.  The master's-level psych training, her position as Deputy Chief, all of it stuff she'd worked so hard for, and as soon as her man started yelling she was immediately the submissive _hausfrau_, trying to coo and pacify and calm him down as her mother had done to her father.  

                _I bet Susana doesn't have these problems, _she thought.  Then again, she allowed, a lover's spat between Susana and Professor Creed was likely to be pretty damned horrific.  She remembered searching the professor's house.  They'd found drawings in his workroom of different ideas.  Professor Creed was a pretty good artist.  He was also one demented monkey.  Those pictures flitted briefly through her mind and she forced them away.  

                The telephone rang.  Both Lisa and Sullivan jumped.  Sullivan grabbed the extension in the living room.  Lisa picked up the one in the kitchen.  A slow feeling of dread invaded her stomach.  

                "Hello?" Sullivan demanded ebulliently.  

                "Ah, Detective Sullivan," Susana Alvarez Lecter said.  "Good evening.  I trust you and Lisa made your way out of the cuffs all right."  

                "We did," Sullivan said.  "You'll be seeing them real soon yourself.  You and your crazy professor."  

                Susana was silent for a moment.  "Detective, there's no need to be rude," she said finally.  "If you don't want my help in catching the Bludgeon Man, then fine.  So be it.  I'll simply leave the area, where you'll never find me."  

                Sullivan let out a breath.  Lisa jumped in.  

                "Susana," she said, "don't hang up.  Just wait a minute.  It's all right."  

                Sullivan turned and stared at her with a hard glance she had never seen on his face before. 

                "Very well," Susana said calmly.  "Drop by my place, if you will.  The FBI's searched it, so I know that you _do _have the address.  The Bludgeon Man will be here in half an hour."  

                Sullivan grinned a very hard grin.  

                "My killer for yours, Lisa, just as I said."  Susana chuckled.  "And Detective…if you're planning on bringing down some extra police to try and bring _me _into custody…I hope you've got a good frequent-flyer plan.  You'll need it."  

                Lisa sighed.  Already she knew what it seemed Susana did:  that Sullivan was planning to capture all three.  A hat trick of murderers.  And if he did, he'd be damning her to a prison sentence on the other side of the world.  

                "A few ground rules, if you please.  Just the two of you.  Between the four of us, bringing the Bludgeon Man down should be easy.  I did it myself once; I assure you it isn't that hard."  

                "So that's it?" Sullivan challenged.  "We show up, you give us the Bludgeon Man?"  

                "Indeed," Susana said.  "Contrary to what you may think of me, Detective, I'm not pure evil.  I'm willing to make a fair trade.  Remember, if you please, I could have simply skipped town with Professor Creed and left you to your own devices.  You'd have caught him eventually, to be sure.  But how many people might have died in the interim?"  

                "Fine," Sullivan said, and grinned a shark's grin. 

                "See you soon," Susana said, and hung up.  

                Jason Sullivan replaced the phone in its cradle and bunched his hands into fists.  He grinned again.  

                "Now _that _was a big mistake," he said, grinning.  Lisa hung up the kitchen phone.  She walked into the living room on shaky legs.  He had to understand.  He _had _to.  

                "Jay?" she asked, her voice faint with fright.  "Jay, I need to talk to you."  

                "What's to say?" he asked.  His tone sounded jolly.  "I know she _thinks _we'll give her Creed in return for the Bludgeon Man, but we're not."  

                "Jay, please," she said. 

                "Look," he said, "I'm not unreasonable.  If they help catch the Bludgeon Man, they'll get credit for that.  Maybe they could commute Creed to life in prison, maybe give her the same deal instead of the death penalty.  I got no problem with that.  But they're going down.  All of them.  I'm gonna make some calls, get a bunch of boyos together, and off they all go."  

                "Jay, we _can't," _she said, and pulled out a kitchen chair.  "Please.  I need…I need you to listen to me."  

                Jason Sullivan tilted his head and stared at his girlfriend. 

                Lisa Starling had prayed that she never had to tell her story.  Especially to him.  She knew what he was:  a good cop, through and through.  She had feared his reaction to this, to knowing that she had not only let a murderer go free, but that she would continue to do so. 

                She felt tears rise to her eyes.  Her stomach churned.  Her voice was shaky.   For a moment she thought she might throw up.  But she gritted her teeth, forced her tears back as best she was able, and soldiered on.  

                "Four years ago….when Susana killed all those people in Behavioral Sciences," she began.   "I went down to Argentina after her.  I didn't have permission.  I…I just went and did it. "  

                Sullivan nodded, his mien puzzled.  

                "I…I tracked her down to her house.  She was living totally openly down there, under her own name and everything.  I think she hadn't had time to move anything to another identity.  She had help when she…when she attacked.  It was this crazy guy named Luke Taylor.  I'd shot him back in the United States.  She got him down and was nursing him back to health, I guess."  

                Lisa's eyes were blank, focused only on the past.  Her body trembled.  But she had to see this through.  He had to understand why he couldn't arrest Susana.  She felt weak and dirty and despicable.  He would hate her.  How could he not?  She'd sold out her own colleagues and allowed their murderer to go free.  

                "I…I went in the house and tried to arrest them," she said.  "He had a knife.  He tried to stab me.  I shot him." 

                Sullivan shrugged.  "No biggie," he said.  "I mean, it's not _nice, _but I've had to shoot people.  Self-defense.  You have to sometimes.  That's what separates people like us from people like them."  

                A freshet of tears wracked Lisa as she continued.  _"No," _she insisted.  

                "Down there…down there the police were in her pocket.  Must've been for years.  She took the evidence.  But we took hers, so she thought it was fair play."  

                "What are you talking about, we took hers?" Sullivan said.  "Lisa, hon, you're talking crazy.  Look, I know, she's your cousin and she's scary as hell, but you gotta show some backbone here.   They're the bad guys.  We're the good guys.  It's gonna be OK."  

                "We're not always the good guys," Lisa said softly.  It was easier to admit the FBI's malfeasance than her own.  She swallowed roughly.   "The FBI wouldn't turn over evidence in her case to her attorneys," she explained.   "The judge finally…he told them to turn it over or he would throw out the charges against her.  It wasn't me, not that."  A sobbing breath escaped her.  "So the US Attorney indicted her for a murder she didn't do.  Murder of Ardelia Mapp and attempted murder…attempted murder on me.  They _knew _she hadn't done it."  

                Sullivan smiled and put his hand on her shoulder, patting it gently.  

                "Lis, hon, it's all right," he said.  "It's all OK.  They tried to screw her over.  It happens.  Cops get like that with cop-killers.  Tell you what.  I know, she's your cousin, you've got some loyalties.  I know how that is.  My dad's younger brother used to be a hellion.  He did some time when he was young.  Finally he straightened out.  Don't get all hinky on me.  I'll tell you what, Lis, together, you and me, we'll make sure they don't try anything on her they're not supposed to.   They got enough to try her on that she did.   And c'mon, it's not like a kangaroo court here.  If she needs evidence, she'll get it, or they'll throw out the charges just like before.  That's how the system works.  You know that, right?"   

                "Jason, you don't understand," she whispered.  A wave of nausea worked in her throat.  But she had to carry this through.  She closed her eyes and babbled the rest as quickly as she could.  

                "Susana hid the evidence.  The knife the guy used.  I told one of the cops I shot him.  I didn't know how to say it in Spanish.  They…they arrested me and put me in jail.  Murder one, I guess, or whatever they call it down there.  I didn't know what to do.  Without the knife I couldn't claim self-defense.  I mean…you have to understand.  I was in prison.  They were telling me if I plea-bargained they would give me twenty years in prison and let me serve my time in an American prison.  Otherwise I'd be looking at life without parole.  I was desperate.  I knew if I went to trial I'd lose."  

                "I…she came to me, Jason.  She came to me and she told me she could fix it all.  She could get me out.  She got the evidence, and she hid it good.  She made a deal with me.  I didn't have any choice, Jason, I was so desperate…you don't know what it's like.  They were _starving _me in jail.  I thought I was going to go crazy."  

                Jason put both his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her.  "You made a _deal _with her, Lis?"  A long, unpleasant pause followed.  "What kind of deal?"  

                "She made the evidence disappear," Lisa whispered.  "Just like with her.  They dropped the charges against me.  I was free. She wanted…she wanted to know what was in her FBI file.  How we caught her.  If I told her that she'd let me go.  She does that…she didn't want me in jail.  She likes tormenting me, but she's saved me twice.  Once when Mapp shot me and then again in Argentina.   If I was in jail…she wouldn't, I don't know, that doesn't make her happy.  There's no fun in it.  But she's still got it, somewhere.  I don't know where.  Somewhere, in a safe deposit box, is all the evidence that they need.  If they catch her, she'll tell the authorities where it is, and then _I _go to jail.  And they're not gonna go easy on me.  I can't take that.  She said so herself, we're bound together.  Either we're both free or we're both in jail."   

                She was crying openly now, and making no attempt to hide it.  Tears streamed down her face. She met his face and looked away, unable to meet his gaze.  

                When Jason Sullivan spoke, his voice was cool and collected.  There was a distance in it that cut her to hear.  She flinched from it like a frightened child.  

                "What did she want from you?" he asked.  "What was your end of the deal?"  

                "Her file," Lisa sobbed.  "She wanted her file.  If she knew how we caught her she could avoid getting caught later."  

                His eyes focused on her like laser beams.  She supposed it was how he looked at suspects.  She cowered in misery.  

                "Did you give it to her?"    His voice was cold and unsympathetic.  

                Lisa buried her head in her hands and her shoulders shook.  

                "Lis?  Did you give it to her?"  

                "Yes," Lisa Starling whispered in utter defeat.  

                "What did you give her?" his voice pressed gently.  

                "Everything," Lisa said.  "I gave her everything."  

                A chair rasped as Jason Sullivan pulled it out and sat down.  He stared coolly at Lisa.  For her part, Lisa looked away, feeling unclean and despicable.  

                "Did you know that she was the one behind all this?  Creed and the Bludgeon Man and everything?"  

                Lisa shook her head.  "No," she said brokenly.  "I didn't know she had any connection to the Bludgeon Man.  As far as Creed, I suspected, but I didn't know anything for sure."  

                "You sure?"  

                Lisa nodded.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  "I knew where she was living," she admitted dully.  "I didn't tell anyone.  I just…Jason, you don't know what it's like. The despair.  In prison, it's…you'd only know if you were there."  

                "You _knew."  _It was a simple, cold statement of fact.  

                Lisa nodded and wiped her nose before she burst into tears again.  "I know, I'm a coward," she sobbed.  "I just…they were going to put me in jail for _twenty years_ down there.  And she'd have gotten away anyway.  I was…I just couldn't, Jason, I broke.  I know you hate me, but I just…I broke."  

                His face was irretrievably cold and his tone chilly.  His voice was measured.  

                "I don't hate you, Lisa," he said.  "But I'm going to collar the Bludgeon Man.  And Susana and Creed, too.  And I think it would be better if you don't come along."  

                Lisa nodded powerlessly and sniffled.  

                He rose and stuffed his automatic in his holster.  Lisa watched him prepare to leave.  She knew this would be it.  The end.  She'd really liked him.  Maybe loved him, she wasn't sure.  But now this was it.  He knew her secret and despised her for it.  

                "When I get back, I'll make arrangements for a hotel room," he said, his tone still measured and cold.  "I think it'd be better if you moved out."  

                Lisa was too emotionally drained to argue.  She thought she knew now how a life-sentenced defendant feels when the prison gates crash closed behind them.  There was dread, yes.  Remorse.  The belief that life would only hold further pain.  But there was also the stern, moral voice of her conscience, telling her that this was just.  That this was richly deserved.  Dimly, in the back of her mind, she wondered if Jason would follow through on it.  She would go to prison if he did.  It didn't seem to matter.  

                She had stopped crying, but when the door slammed she started again.  


	15. Gathering

                Jason Sullivan pulled the Mustang up in the driveway and grinned.  He could see lights in the house.  Get the bad guys, that's what cops did.  He would do that now.  

                Lisa's confession had rocked him.  He'd never expected that she would connive with a cop-killer.  He was disappointed in her as he'd never been before.  Here he'd thought she might be the one, and boom, it had all fallen apart. There was no way he could be with her now.  Not if she let a woman who had killed so many cops go free.  But now he had a mission.  Something to focus on.  It helped. 

                He wasn't unreasonable.  Susana Alvarez would get a trial.  The fact that she'd helped bring the Bludgeon Man to justice would not be hidden.  Lisa had said something about the FBI hiding evidence.  If that was true, it would not be repeated. Cops were only human like anyone else.  But when it came time for her trial, she'd get what was coming to her.  Detective Sullivan could even agree that she could keep her life.  She'd spend it in prison, though.  

                Jason reached for his cell phone.  He dialed the main number for the police switchboard.  Here, he could get cops from all over the city to back him up.  This would be his finest hour.  

                "Boston police," the bored dispatcher said. 

                "Hey," Jason said.  "This is Detective Lieutenant Sullivan.  I need major backup here.  We've got two serial killers holed up in a townhouse here.  A third may be on the way."  

                The dispatcher seemed surprised. "What?  You serious?"  

                "Hell, yes," Jason said.  "Susana Alvarez and Thomas Creed.  You'll see 'em on the FBI's most wanted.  Armed and extremely dangerous."  

                "I'll have backup your way as soon as I can," the dispatcher promised.  

                Jason glanced in the windows of the townhouse.  He saw a man standing in the dining room.  He appeared to be just sitting there, cooling out.  Probably Creed.  An upstairs light flicked on.  That meant Alvarez would be upstairs.  Probably going to the bathroom or something.  

                Professor Creed's eyes dropped to his Mustang and then to him.  _Shit.  _They'd made him.  He didn't want to wait for backup.  Susana Alvarez had performed her raid against the van Creed was in with military precision and a high-powered rifle.   By the time backup got here, God only knew what firepower they might have.  If he could get Creed in cuffs, that was all he needed to do.  Susana Alvarez had gone to a lot of effort to get Creed sprung.  A threat to blow his head off if she didn't sit tight was a threat she would probably listen to.

                Jason Sullivan charged the door.  It yielded on the first kick.  Weird; he would have thought a woman who'd been a fugitive from justice would have better locks.  He swung around, his pistol high.  Professor Thomas Creed was his own height, and a big old target in the middle of the sights.  

                "Freeze!" Detective Sullivan ordered.  

                Professor Creed sighed and put his hands in the air.  "Very well," he said mildly.  "You've got me, Detective.  No need for pyrotechnics."  

                "Turn around," Sullivan ordered.  "Put your hands on your head."  The professor complied.  

                He cuffed the professor, making him sit down.  In his pocket were some flex-cuffs, plastic strips that served as handcuffs in a pinch.  Sullivan didn't like using them unless he had to; they could cause more damage to somebody's wrists if they struggled, and then they'd sue the department.  Sullivan had seen the police department fork over more money to criminals than he cared to see.  But he used the flex-cuffs to attach Creed's handcuffs to a table leg.   They worked just fine for that.

                "Don't you move and don't you try and warn her," Creed said.  "You do and I'll blow her head off.  If she comes easy I'll just arrest her, same as you."  

                Professor Creed nodded and seemed tired somehow.  "Of course, Detective."  

                Sullivan's eyes narrowed.  This seemed _too _easy.  Was Creed just a pansy after all?  Nah, he didn't want his wife But he had to do something.  And if backup arrived and they were both in cuffs already, catching the Bludgeon Man would be easy.  

                But Creed was behaving himself.  He was already in this situation, and Susana Alvarez Lecter was free and running around her house.  Better to try taking her down.  She might be descending the stairs with a 9mm in her hand.  

                Calmly but tensely, Jason Sullivan pointed his gun in front of him and began to walk up the stairs.  

                …

                Darryl Schantz, the Bludgeon Man, walked along the busy street.  His hands clenched and unclenched.  After all this time, revenge was at hand. _The bitch.  _The bitch who had taken his manhood away from him.  Part of him – the part that could still think rationally – realized this might be a trap of some kind.  But his rage and his anger overrode that.  For twelve years he had suffered over what the btich had done to him.  A chance to pay her back might not exist in his lifetime.  

                Darryl had done some research into his tormentor.  In the joint, there had been little to do other than read books and lift weights.   He had done both.  The prison had let him read a few old _Tattlers _in which there was information about her.  He knew she was rich – way richer than any sort of working joe like him.  He also knew she was pretty damn vicious, but he didn't need any fuckin' newspaper to tell him that.  

                Revenge.  _Re-venge.  _Now that sounded sweet.  

                The townhouse looked like any other, but it would be forever burned into Darryl Schantz's mind.  The door was slightly open, and that surprised him.  A couple of cars parked in the driveway.  He glanced around and saw no one waiting to spring on him.  Not a trap, then.  Good.  He wanted to settle his score with Alina-fucking-Lektor.  Or Susana, or whatever her goddam real name was.  He kicked the door hard.  If someone was waiting on the other side they'd get mashed.  No cry came.  He strolled inside, bag of weapons slung over his shoulder.  

  The place didn't seem to have changed a whole lot.  Same furniture.  Seemed kind of sterile, though.  No mail on the table; no magazines or stuff.  The fridge was open.  Nothing in it.  She wasn't living here.  Didn't matter. She would die here.  Hard.  

                …

                Professor Creed watched the cop go.  He was still mildly surprised the cop had bought his immediate surrender.  But he had a plan, and it did not involve returning to death row.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter had been a fugitive for years, and she had quickly schooled him in things he would need to know in order to remain free.  There were also things that she had learned to do.   Here was one such example.  

                During their respective terms of captivity, both Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Susana Alvarez Lecter had improvised handcuff keys.  Professor Creed had done so as well, but he was never in a situation where freeing himself from handcuffs was all there was between him and freedom.  Since Susana had recovered her freedom, she had more options open to her than a prisoner would.  And she had shared with him as unselfishly as she had shared everything else.  

                Professor Creed twisted his right wrist in the cuffs and touched the wristwatch on his left wrist.  His thumb and finger worked their way between the watch and his wrist.  Between his watch and his wrist was a plastic shell.  In the middle of the shell was a short black handcuff key made of plastic.  Professor Creed thought the design of this ingenious.  It was much better than any prisoner could have improvised.  Susana wore one of these under her Patek Philippe watch, and she'd given one to him in the car to wear under the Rolex she had given him.  If they were to be arrested, neither of them should fight being handcuffed.  Far easier to open the cuffs at his leisure and strike when the cops were calmer and not expecting it.  

                It took only a moment or two to open his handcuffs.  Calmly, Professor Creed locked them and put them under the couch.  If the cop had Susana, Creed could take care of him.  If Susana thought he was down for the count, she would fight.  If she knew he was there, she might not.  

                There was a sudden _bang.  _The front door burst open.  Quickly, Professor Creed ducked behind the couch to see who it might be.  It was a man he did not recognize.  He wore a goatee and had a nasty look on his face.  His head was shaved.  He seemed quite muscular.  He wore a ragged shirt and inexpensive jeans.  A black nylon bag was slung over one shoulder.  

                This, Professor Creed realized, was the Bludgeon Man.  The man whose career of killing had resulted in his own freedom.  That didn't mean that he was an ally; far from it.  Susana had simply played him like a card.  She meant to trade him for Creed himself.  

                The Bludgeon Man turned and went upstairs.  Professor Creed did not see a gun in his hand, but there were doubtlessly several nasty weapons in that bag of his.  He waited until the Bludgeon Man had headed upstairs.  Then he slipped out of his shoes and began to pursue the other man upstairs.  He had a pistol and a knife on his belt.  He rarely used pistols, and would prefer the knife if he had the choice; hitting Susana would be horrible irony.  

                Thomas Creed drew his flat, black pistol and began to slowly creep up the stairs.  Behind him, the door opened again.   Creed stopped and stared at it, wondering who was behind him.

                …

                Jason Sullivan edged around the door of the bedroom.  He'd checked the bathroom and the other two bedrooms already.  No Susie.  She was in here.  As he approached the door he could hear her humming.  For a moment he wondered what a serial killer's bedroom was supposed to look like.  

                He shoved open the door suddenly and entered the room to find out.  Susana's old bedroom was white and quite pleasant.  A large bed dominated the room.  A dresser stood against one wall.  A makeup table and chair, with a lighted mirror around it, stood against another wall as a mute testament to Susana's mild obsession with her appearance.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter was standing in the center of the room, arranging something out of a suitcase.  She was humming to herself as she worked.  Sullivan grinned.  This was gonna be easier than he thought.  

                He stepped forward and aimed his weapon at her chest.  

                "Freeze!" he commanded.  

                Susana turned and stared at him in surprise.  She recovered quickly.  Sullivan's lips split back from his teeth in a hard grin.  

                "Move and you're dead," he said.  "Turn around.  Keep your hands in the air where I can see them."  

                She said nothing but stared at him, thinking.  

                "I'll blow your goddam head off if you don't do what I say, cop-killer," Sullivan said.  He meant it, too.  She'd get what she had coming, but to get it she was gonna goddam well cooperate.  Otherwise she was gonna get her brains blown out.  Jason Sullivan had no intention of his name being added to Susana's list of victims.  

                "You needn't be rude," Susana said, but she put her hands in the air obediently.  Sullivan's eyes narrowed again.  This just seemed _too _easy.  Or were they just cowards?  Shit, you never knew.  Maybe that was it.  Or maybe they just both knew that they were licked.  He decided he would check on Creed once he had Susana in cuffs.  

                "Turn around," Sullivan ordered, blissfully unaware that not one but two serial killers were creeping up the stairs towards him. Susana complied.  She cocked her head and stared at his reflection in the mirror.  

                "Where's Lisa, Detective Sullivan?" she queried.  

                Sullivan stopped and tensed.  The muzzle of the pistol wavered visibly.  

                "Never mind that," he said.  

                "I suppose she told you her little revelation.  Didn't care for it, did you?"  

                "_Shut up." _ His voice wavered.  

                "Honestly, Detective, who are you to be so high and mighty?  You're planning to shoot me here, aren't you?  Execution style."

                The idea had crossed Jason Sullivan's mind.  To his way of thinking, cop-killers were the lowest scum of the earth.  But he was more interested in bringing her in.  

                "No," he said, and got the handcuffs on one wrist.  She was compliant as he shackled her other wrist.  His eyes narrowed.  This was _way _too easy.   He read the Miranda warning from rote.  Susana simply sat on her bed and looked down regretfully, like any other of a thousand criminals he had arrested in his career.  Maybe she was thinking about her kid.  Well, too bad; she should've stayed wherever she was hiding.  She should've left _his _city alone.  

                …

                The Bludgeon Man walked up the stairs ever so quietly.  He was feeling better now, more like the hunter he wanted to be.   At the top of the stairs, he stopped and stared.  There she was.  The bitch.  The fuckin' bitch who had castrated him and made his twelve-year prison term a living hell.  She was sitting on the bed, looking down sadly, like any one of the bitches he'd hunted either as Darryl Schantz or as the Bludgeon Man.  

                But there was some guy standing over her with a gun.  What the _hell?  _Had the bitch done this to other guys too?  No way, Darryl Schantz thought, no freakin' way.  This was _his _revenge.  He'd waited twelve years for this.  A burst of rage coursed through him, the same rage that had fueled him for so long.  

                The other guy looked at him curiously.  

                "Hey," he said.  "So backup finally arrived.  Don't recognize you.  What station you work out of?"  

                Aha.  Cop.  Darryl hated cops only slightly less than Susana.  

                Susana's eyes scanned his, and he was elated to see fear in them.  Her jaw worked once and her lips opened.  

                "Detective, that's the--," she began.  

                Nuh-_uh_, no way.  She was _his.  _Darryl Schantz was going to punish her as he had once decided to punish her years ago.  And now there was a lot of interest to pay.  But the cop would have to go down first.  

                Darryl Schantz withdrew his Gurkha knife from its sheath.  It was a wicked, heavy-bladed knife with a curve in it.  A knife designed for war.  It felt good in his hand.  The cop turned, his gun finally beginning to move off the bitch on the bed and towards him.  

                Darryl stepped in close, cleared the knife from its sheath, and swung from all his might.  The knife bit into Detective Jason Sullivan's shoulder and went through.  There was a tremendous burst of pain up Sullivan's arm, and then a spreading numbness.  Sullivan's gun hand suddenly fell from its sleeve, the arm neatly severed just above the elbow.  Blood jetted in an arterial spray, covering the Bludgeon Man.  He didn't mind.  It was like freakin' war paint.  How proper that she see him like this before she died, covered in blood.   He wiped it from his eyes and stared down at her.  She began fumbling with something almost immediately.  

                Jason Sullivan stared down at his stump and at his arm.  His mind gibbered.  His arm was…was…on the goddam _floor. _The hand, severed from the mind that controlled it, relaxed, letting the gun slide from its grip.Pieces of ragged sleeve trailed up from it.  He could see the tip of the bone protruding from it, shockingly white amongst the red.  Then he collapsed to the floor himself.  

                "Hello, Alina," the Bludgeon Man said softly.  "That's right.  It's really Susana, isn't it?  Well…I been waiting twelve years to talk to you."


	16. Confrontation

                For a long second, neither person in the room spoke.  Susana shifted a bit.  The Bludgeon Man pointed the knife at her in warning.  Jason Sullivan's blood dripped slowly from the blade.  

                "I have waited so goddam long for this," he said.  His tone was soft and dangerous.  "After everything you have done to me…you are going to _pay._"  

                Susana smiled coldly.  "Am I?"  

                "Oh yes."  

                It angered him that she wasn't scared.  She seemed to shake off resignation at her impending death and seemed to be just as sarcastic and patronizing as when he'd been an orderly and she'd been a resident.   The bitch ought to be _scared_.  He'd gotten to her in her den.  

                She was shifting around, as if trying something.  Did she have a handcuff key somewhere?  The Bludgeon Man had heard of that.  He waggled the knife blade at her.  

                "No moving," he admonished.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter watched him carefully and thought.  The cop at her feet was dying.  No help from him.  She had a handcuff key similar to the one she had given Professor Creed under her own watch.  What she needed was a chance to use it.  

                The thought of such a plebian even touching her was loathsome.  She knew for a fact he wasn't going to rape her – she'd seen to that herself.  Darryl Schantz would rape no more women.  But the Bludgeon Man could indeed kill her.  And do…worse.  

                As if reading her mind, the Bludgeon Man dropped his free hand to her leg.  She wore a knee-length skirt and nylons.  Professor Creed liked her to dress femininely, and she had been willing to indulge him so far, being fond of it herself.  But Darryl's hand on her knee engendered only feelings of disgust.  

                Susana was far tougher than she looked, even now that she had largely left her murderous tendencies in the past.  Perhaps getting him angry would be the way to get him to not notice her slipping the key from under her watch.  She'd have to be careful, though.  What she'd done to him once had left him only barely on this side of psychosis.  

                "What are you doing that for, Darryl?" she asked mockingly.  "You can't close the deal.  Trust me.  I know.  Any of the leftovers were just…_flushed _down the toilet."  

                His unlovely face twisted and his hand tightened on the knife.  

                "Shut up, bitch," he panted.  

                Slowly, he began to unpack his bag.  Susana's fingers slid under her watch and began to remove the key between her watch and her wrist with the same care she used in surgery.  Once she was free, she was relatively confident that she would be able to defeat Darryl.  Barring that, Thomas would be coming up the stairs eventually.  Where was he, anyway?  

                Fortunately, Darryl hadn't had the brains to search her for weapons.  Clipped to the back of her skirt waistband was a Spyderco Civilian.  She'd be able to rip him up good once she was able to get out of the handcuffs.  

                Darryl's hands were trembling with excitement.  He had waited so long for this moment.  With a rough gesture, he overturned his bag and let his torture implements fall out onto the bed.  Then he dipped his hands into the clutter and came up with a pencil case.  He opened it.  A syringe glittered in his hand.  

                "Now we're gonna have some _fun,_" he said. 

                …

                Professor Thomas Creed crept up the stairs, his pistol in hand.  He hadn't heard anyone behind him.  Even if someone was there, Susana needed him more.  Once she was free, they could take care of any cops that the annoying detective had called in to help.  If there were too many, they would think of something.  If it came down to it, he supposed, he would sacrifice himself so that she could get away.  Professor Creed knew what awaited him in prison.  He would sooner die free than go back to that stifling void.  

                So he crept upstairs, moving slowly and deliberately.  His predator's senses were as sharp as they had ever been.  He checked out the bathroom very slowly.  Likewise, the spare bedroom got a thorough check.  Professor Creed did not want either the Bludgeon Man or a Boston police officer to pop out behind him.  There was already one person behind him, and that was all he wanted for right now.  Had the situation not been so pressing, he would have gone after them immediately.  

                Nothing in either room.  His ears pricked for the sounds of anything downstairs.  The master bedroom door was closed.  He had to check.  Calmly, quietly, Professor Creed opened the door.  What he saw threw him into a rage.  

                On the floor was the detective.  A large amount of blood had soaked into Susana's Berber carpet.  Professor Creed noted the detective's arm was severed as one of the last vestiges of rational thought in his mind before the sight of the other two people drove that from him.  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter lay on the bed, her hands pinned behind her.  Her skirt was up around her waist and her pantyhose roughly pulled down around her thighs.  The Bludgeon Man straddled her.  His face was flushed red and his features twisted with rage.  Had Professor Creed himself not lost himself in fury, he might have realized that the Bludgeon Man's rage was born from his inability to do what he wanted to do most to her.  

                In times of stress, people revert to what they know best.  This is true whether the person involved is a doctoral-level professor of philosophy, a serial killer, or indeed both.  Professor Creed had never liked or used guns.  When he saw his fiancée and her assailant, he put the gun down.  In some faint part of his mind that still remained rational, he thought that it made more sense; he was afraid of hitting Susana.  He plucked the Spyderco Civilian from his belt and charged the bed.  The wicked, curving blade snapped into place with a firm _snick. _

                He tackled the Bludgeon Man from the side, forcing him off of Susana.  His left arm reached to grapple the other man.  His right drove the blade directly into the other man's side, piercing his kidney.  

A mixture of blood and urine began to slide down the Bludgeon Man's side.  

                The Bludgeon Man's elbow came up sharply with the quick instincts of a man who has spent twelve years fighting off those who wanted to rape him.  Professor Creed's head whiplashed back.  As they fell off the bed, the Bludgeon Man grabbed his own knife.  

                Professor Creed plunged the Civilian into his enemy's chest and ripped up.  The serrated edge of the blade, designed as a last-ditch weapon, tore viciously into the Bludgeon Man's stomach.   Creed pressed the knife further, meaning to pierce his enemy's heart.  

                Above the struggling men, free of her assailant, Susana Alvarez managed to deploy her key and unlock her handcuffs quickly.  She grabbed up a club lying amidst the Bludgeon Man's arsenal.   She saw the wounds he was taking and was deeply, savagely proud of her man.  She had chosen well.  

                The Bludgeon Man was too close in to chop with the blade very well.  He tried anyway, sinking the blade partway into his foe's shoulder.  Susana saw an opening, moved in quickly, and struck him on the head as hard as she could.  Her strength was far greater than that of most ordinary women.  The Bludgeon Man's eyes rolled, but he did not lose consciousness nor give up the fight.  

                The gunshot echoed in the room, loud and deafening.  The scent of cordite hung heavy in the air.  All four people in the room glanced up at the doorway.  For a moment, no one moved.  

                Lisa Starling stood in the doorway, her weapon lowering from where she had fired a warning shot into the ceiling.  Her eyes dropped down to where Jason Sullivan lay in a state of soupy semi-consciousness as his life's blood poured and puddle on the carpet.  Then they flicked back up to Susana, standing over the two grappling men with a club in her hand.  

                "Lisa, this isn't what you think," Susana Alvarez Lecter said.

                Lisa Starling's face took on an expression of horror and fury as she beheld the scene in front of her.  Her lips split back from her teeth in a snarl.  Despite everything, she still had feelings for Sullivan, and there he lay dying on the floor.  A bitter, painfully clear understanding came into her eyes.  Her cheeks flushed red as she gave in to her anger.  

                Her gun tracked down inexorably.  That, at least, had remained unchanged.  She was furious, but she knew exactly what she was doing.  The muzzle stopped, aiming directly at Susana Alvarez Lecter's head. Susana dropped the club and put her hands in the air calmly.  Sirens began to wail in the distance.

 Lisa's finger began to tighten on the trigger.  


	17. Closing the Circle

                For a long moment, no one spoke.  Jason Sullivan let out a foggy groan.  Lisa Starling's weapon did not waver from Susana's head.  

                "Lisa, I didn't do this to him, and neither did Thomas," Susana said softly.  

                "Keep your hands where I can see them," Lisa said in a choked, gravelly voice.  She glanced at the two men on the floor.  Professor Creed untangled himself from the other man and stood up.   He, too, raised his hands.  

                Darryl Schantz knew he was badly wounded.  He knew he would only have one opportunity to pull this off.  Whoever the blonde bitch was he didn't know.  But there were three of them and one of him.  He didn't want the blonde to shoot the bitch.  She was _his.  _But it looked like Blondie was a cop.  He'd need to get the gun away from her.  Maybe wing her in the leg or something.  She might be _fuuuun _to play with once he was done.  She seemed angry about the dude on the floor.  

                He got up and gained his feet shakily.  She was still holding the gun on the bitch.  Her eyes flicked to him.  She took in the blood splattered on him. 

                "Who are you?" she asked.  

                "I was just comin' in here to do some work," he said quickly.  "That's what I do.  I'm a working man.  They told me go to this address.  Door was open, so I knocked and came on in.  Maybe I got the wrong house, I don't know.  But these crazy assholes attacked me.  That's Susana Lecter you got there, you know.  I seen her on TV."  

                The blonde considered that.  Darryl took a step closer.  Five running steps, then he'd tackle her.  He had no choice.  Sirens wailed in the distance.   If the cops checked his ID he was screwed.  It was now or never.  His back hurt like a bastard where the psycho had stabbed him.  He screwed up his courage. 

                Darryl Schantz moved forward slowly.  One step…two steps…three.   He darted forward then, bending low, meaning to tackle the blonde and get the gun out of her hand.  Then get the hell out of here before the cops got here.  

                But suddenly there was a spurt of flame in front of him, and what felt like a full-force kick to the chest.  He tried to keep moving forward, but his legs were suddenly no longer under him.  He was falling, and now his chest hurt mightily.  He felt himself thump to the floor of the bedroom.  He stared wide-eyed at Lisa Starling above him, her weapon aimed at him still.  A wisp of smoke rose lazily from the barrel.  Then everything began to darken and turn black.  

                Lisa Starling stared at the dead serial killer on the floor, then back to the two live ones, then to the torture kit on the bed.  

                "Was that the Bludgeon Man?" she rasped.  

                Susana nodded. 

                Lisa seemed less interested than she might have been to discover that the man she had sought for weeks was lying dead less than five feet from her.  The gun remained aimed at Susana.  Lisa gestured down with the muzzle.  

                "Help him," she said simply.  

                Susana heard the sirens and tensed.  "Lisa," she said tactfully, "the police are coming."  

                "Help him," Lisa said inexorably.  

                "If they catch us, you know what happens to you," Susana said.  

                Lisa sighed.   "I know," she said.  "Help him."  

                Susana glanced down at the man on the floor.  He was in bad shape; looked like half his blood supply was on her carpet.  But she'd seen worse. 

                "Lisa, you know what's going to happen if the police catch me," she said.  "If I go down, so do you."  

                Lisa closed her eyes and swallowed.  Her words were calmer but disjointed.  Everything seemed so confusing.  Her duties tugged at her in a hundred different directions.  But she knew what she _wanted _to happen.  

                "You modified the deal, Susana," she said.  "So am I."  

                Susana Alvarez Lecter glanced up at her cousin and tilted her head curiously.  

                "You went to all this risk to save Professor Creed," Lisa explained.  "All this time…I've been a coward.  I've been cringing at the thought of you coming back.  I cringed and I cried and I begged.  I didn't _want _you to come back.  I liked it the way it was."   

                  "Well," Susana said, "you know I can take you with me."  

                "You can," Lisa said.  Then she turned her face away and muttered something.  When she spoke again, her voice was calmer.  

                 "Maybe I'm a lousy FBI agent for letting you go.  Maybe Jason hates me now.    Maybe I'll go to jail anyway.  But if you can risk everything to save the man _you _love, so can I."  Crazily, tears wavered in her eyes.  Perhaps realizing that her cousin was somewhere south of _compos mentis, _Susana did not speak.  

                "You brought Creed into the deal.  If you and Creed stay free, so do I.  OK, fine.  Now I'm changing the deal.  If Jay lives, we all go free.  If he dies, we all go down.  Period.  Don't tell me I'll go to jail too.  I _know _I will.  But _so will you._"  Her voice turned harder.  "You've been holding my freedom over my head all this time.  For years now, you've made me do things for you, even when you're not here.  I've squashed leads that I knew would lead to you.  Or that I thought even _might _lead to you.  I did that for you. You've made me let you take Professor Creed and let _him _walk free too.   I'll do that, too. I'll feel like shit, but I'll do it.  But godammit, Susana, _you _are going to do_ this _for _me."  _

Susana shrugged.  "And if I do?"  

                Lisa sighed.  The words came far more easily than she thought.  

                "I'll let you and Creed go," she said.  "Both of you.  No lies.  No bullshit.  You and Creed and your little boy.  Me…well, we'll see."  

                Susana  nodded.  She squatted down by Jason Sullivan's side and examined the wound.  She glanced up at Lisa.  

                "I have supplies downstairs," she said.  "In my suitcase.  I need to get them."  

                Red flashing lights filled the room.  Police cars screeched to a halt and began disgorging officers.  Susana closed her eyes and thought of her son.  She'd only meant to leave him with his nanny for a week while she arranged for Professor Creed to be free.  Would it be for life, now?

                Lisa nodded wordlessly and pointed the gun at Creed, wordlessly making it clear that the price of her man's life would be the life of Susana's.  

                True to her word, Susana returned with a fine leather suitcase.  When she opened it, white-boxed medical supplies spilled out.  Susana calmly squatted next to Jason Sullivan and began wrapping a tourniquet around his arm.  Susana tied off the tourniquet and injected a syringe of Demerol into Sullivan's arm.  He began to stir.  Following the anesthetic was an IV needle.               

                 "Where did you get all those?"  Lisa asked, watching her.  _How odd, _part of her thought.  Jason Sullivan was a good cop.  He'd always been a good cop.  That was what had attracted her to him; in him she saw the unsullied force for good she had once been.  Now, the same woman he had once scorned as a cop-killer would save his life.  

                And Jason wasn't wrong.  Susana _was _a cop-killer.  She had done horrible things because she enjoyed them.  She had slaughtered eight of Lisa's co-workers and Will Graham as well, largely because she had deemed their deaths necessary for her to remain free.  

                But to paint her as pure evil was mistaken, Lisa thought, just as it had been mistaken to consider her father so.  She was a killer, but she was also a surgeon.  Lisa found herself thinking of the letter Susana had sent her upon leaving the US.  _Left alone, I should never have harmed another soul.  And even now, I've saved more than I've killed.  _

That was also true.  Susana had saved lives in her work as a surgeon.  Before that, she had saved Lisa's life.  Now she would save Jason's.  If he still hated Lisa after that, so be it.  

                Susana attached an IV bag and tubing to the needle and handed it up to her cousin without a second thought.  "Hold that," she directed absently.  Then she bent over Sullivan again and checked something else.  

                "Originally, I thought Thomas might have been hurt more badly in getting him out that I thought," Susana said absently.  "Covering all bases.  After that, I'd thought it might be fun to finish the job on the Bludgeon Man, but you seem to have taken care of that."   

                Satisfied with Jason's condition, Susana lifted his severed arm and looked at it thoughtfully.  She took a set of hemostats and clamped something off.  

                "Are they…are they going to be able to save his arm?" Lisa asked.  _He touched me with that hand, _she thought, and suddenly had to fight off nausea.  

                Susana shrugged wordlessly.  

                Lisa's voice trembled a bit as she spoke.  "Don't torture me," she said, and waited a moment for her voice to firm up.  "Just say yes or no."  

                "Maybe," Susana said thoughtfully.  "I've never done limb reimplantation.  I can't say.  As long as he hits the OR within two hours, the odds are good.  That's all I can tell you."  She took a blue cold-pack and pressed the severed arm down on it.  "I _can _tell you that there are very good reimplantation surgeons in Boston, though.   Here was where they did the very first one, you know.   Make sure to ask for Dr. Gulick.  Some of his patients recover up to eighty percent function."  She sighed.   

                Then the room was rapidly filled with police officers.  They saw Susana crouching over the wounded man.  A few shouts filled the room.  Lisa Starling silenced them.  Professor Creed advanced towards his fiancée and stood beside her, wondering if everything had been for naught.  

                "Who the hell is that?"  

                Susana looked up calmly at the officers swarming into the room.  "I'm Sarah Levine," she said smoothly as if she was telling the truth.  "I'm an orthopedic surgeon.  My husband and I were just up from New York City.  A friend of ours lent us their townhouse here.  Then…this _man _over there broke in."  

                The cop looked down at her, over at Professor Creed, and finally at Lisa.  

                "This man needs an ambulance," Susana continued.  "As in _now.  _I've managed to control the bleeding, but every minute that goes by makes it less likely they can reimplant his arm.  Have them bring ice, get him to Mass Gen, and page Dr. Gulick."

                The cop looked over at Lisa.  "Detective Sullivan reported there were two escapees holed up here.  Federal fugitives.  Tom Creed and Susana Alvarez."  

                Professor Creed's mouth quirked.  

                "No," came a groaned, choked voice on the floor.  

                Jason Sullivan gestured with the one arm he still had.  "Tony…no.  It's not them."  His eyes shifted over to Lisa's.  

                "I…I made a mistake," he said.  "I jumped the gun.  It's not them.  Just…just let 'em go, no need to hassle them, right?"  He smiled painfully.  "I made a mistake," he repeated.  "Shouldn't have come here alone anyways."  

                Lisa Starling picked up the meaning and smiled softly.  

                A few minutes later, a hastily summoned ambulance crew arrived and put Jason Sullivan on a gurney.  Susana followed them out, barking orders at them non-stop until they were safely in the ambulance and moving away.  

                Professor Creed followed through the throng of police officers.  They were excited as they saw the torture kit laid out on the bed and the corpse lying on the carpet.  They paid no attention at all to him.  His shoulder throbbed, but Susana could take care of that later.  He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lisa Starling behind him, seeing both of them safely out the door.  

                He was almost bowled over to see Susana Alvarez Lecter politely asking a cop to move his cruiser so they could get their car out of the driveway.  Lisa followed him to the edge of the driveway and stood by the car they had used.  The three stood together, looking calmly at each other.  

                "I'll tell them your ID checked out, so I released you," Lisa said softly.    "I'm not going to bother.  I _know _it will."  

                Susana chuckled.  "You know me too well," she commented.  

                "You know you two will have to leave the country," Lisa said.  

                "We didn't plan on staying," Susana said.  "I _do _have a bouncy four-year-old waiting for me."  

                "And no more killing.  Ever.  For both of you."  

                Susana rolled her eyes as if Lisa was being terribly unreasonable.  "Oh, that.  Thomas just wanted to show he still had it.  Male ego, you know."  

                Lisa closed her eyes and wondered if she was doing the right thing.  Were these two monsters too dangerous to be free?  But no, Susana had held up her end of the bargain.  Lisa would do the same.  

                "What about the federal marshals?" Lisa asked cuttingly.  

                "What about the Bludgeon Man?" Susana asked.  

                Lisa stopped.  "He was…he tried to attack me."  

                Susana shook her head and grinned.  "Oh no, Lisa," she said.  "That's not why you killed him.  _I _know why you killed him."  

                Lisa eyed her cousin carefully and held her breath.  

                "You know what blood spatters look like," Susana continued.  

                Lisa glanced away.  "Yes, I do," she said.  

                "You knew it was the Bludgeon Man who had attacked your boyfriend," Susana pressed.  

                Lisa nodded.  

                "And that's why you killed him," Susana continued.  

                Lisa's mouth quirked.  Finally, she nodded.  

                "That's why I killed the marshals," Susana said.  "Same as you.  For the sake of the man I love."  

                Lisa digested that for several moments.  "Then go," she said.  "Just go.  Now, while people are busy."  

                Susana nodded and put her bag in the back seat of the car.  

                "I ought to get to the hospital myself," Lisa continued.  

                Susana shrugged.  "There's no pressing need," she said.  "Certainly you want to be there, but he'll be in the OR for several hours anyway.  You'll just sit around."  

                "I'm going," Lisa repeated.  Then she paused.  The words slipped out of her mouth before she realized it.  

                "I love him, Susana," she said.  "Thank you for saving him."  

                Susana shrugged.  "It's my job," she said and slipped into the passenger seat of the car

                "Goodbye, Susana," Lisa said.  

                "Goodbye, Lisa." 

  Behind the wheel, Professor Creed sketched a quick salute before turning around to back the car out of the driveway.  Lisa watched it go.  

                For a moment she considered what she had just done.  She had just let two wanted serial killers go.  She had just killed a third.  The odds of any real repercussion were minimal; the Bludgeon Man's equipment was spilled out on the bed and he'd died with a knife in his hand.  The same knife he'd used to attack Jason.  

                She felt no guilt.  Not about letting Susana and Creed go; not about shooting the Bludgeon Man.  She'd done what she had to do.  The Bludgeon Man would menace no more.  Would Susana or Creed?  Lisa thought not.  Having lost their freedom once, they would value it more.  

                She was icily calm as they took her down to the station to fill out the paperwork necessary on her shooting.  She handed over her weapon as was necessary.   She called Kenton and informed him that she had found the Bludgeon Man attacking another woman, and had shot him when he refused to desist.    Her job here was done.  

                At the hospital, she sat and waited for Jason to get out of surgery.  It was good that he was in there that long, she thought.  Meant they were trying to reattach the arm.  So she sat around and waited until they rolled him out.  

                Susana and Creed.  She actually _loved _him.  That was hard to believe.  But when Lisa found herself thinking about what she would do if she was in Susana's place, it was hard to think of anything else she would have done differently.  

                What about her and Jason?  Would he still hate her?  Would she get her heart broken?  She didn't know.  It remained to be seen.  But she would stick with him.  

                When they rolled him out of surgery, she went to him.   He was still very groggy.  His arm was back, wrapped in a bandage.  A metal brace and ring was attached to his arm at the point of amputation.  He would need therapy to get his arm working again and he might never be completely recovered.    But he was there, he was whole, and he gripped her hand back when she took his good hand.  

                Lisa Starling smiled softly and held his hand.  She would stay with him.  


	18. Happily Ever After

_Author's note:  _

_Yes, I admit this is a bit gooier than I expected.  But this is the last of the Susana series.  My original daughter-of-Lecter story 'Settling Accounts' has ballooned into five fics, 300,000 words in 77 chapters.  I'd be a liar if I said Susana wasn't one of my favorite original characters; she was an enormously fun character to write.  Every Lecter must have a Starling; so Lisa Starling came into play in 'Blood Ties' to be Susana's nemesis.  Now it's time for both of them to finish their series.  Yes, this is a bit of a valentine to my characters, but they've both become favorites (even though poor Lisa got abused in various nasty ways – shot, emotionally tormented, the Tongue Scene of Infamy)._

_This is going to be the last Susana fic, in all likelihood – all good things must come to an end.  So here you are, the final chapter of Lisa and Susana.  The discerning reader may notice that the end is somewhere between 'tribute' and 'blatant theft'…but hey, it turned out that way.  Those of you who have read 'Those Who Come After' may recognize an old character from that fic coming back for a cameo…_

_Also, thanks to Luna for assisting with French._

_But on with the show, it's a happy occasion… _

                __

                Lisa Starling sat in the antechamber of the church.  She tapped her feet nervously. The dress shuffled around her legs.  She'd never worn all this frills and such before.  The dress billowed out around her legs.  She figured her legs were somewhere in there, but couldn't see them.  

                Agent Krause glanced in at her and frowned.  

                "Why do you still have your gun?"  

                Lisa touched the flat Glock on the table in front of her.  

                "Um," she said.  "I don't know, I'm just used to it."  

                "Give me that," Krause said.  "You don't need to get married carrying a gun."  She took the weapon away and examined it.  "This is _loaded!" _ 

                "I'm an FBI agent," Lisa pointed out.  "I'm supposed to carry a gun.  And it's supposed to be loaded."  

                "Not now," Agent Krause told her.  "That's the _last _thing you need is to have a gun right now.  Besides, a Glock doesn't go with your dress."  Without brooking any further ado, she carried the weapon out of the antechamber and stuck her head outside.  One of the other bridesmaids took the weapon for her without comment.   A fair amount of Lisa's bridesmaids were FBI agents, and were not afraid to take the gun.  

                The white dress billowed around Lisa's legs as she moved.  She felt nervous.  Here it was, after all this time.  It hadn't been easy.  Jason had been in the hospital for a few weeks.  Reattaching his arm had been not so difficult as the aftermath.  

                He'd undergone therapy with great vigor, determined to recover as much function in his arm as he could.  That had its ups and downs, but mostly it had gone well.  He'd recovered about eighty percent function, so they said.  The scar was there and would always be there.  

                What was worse – for him – was that he had been medically discharged from the Boston Police Department.  All he'd ever wanted was to be a cop.  But she'd been there for him.  She'd managed to get him into the FBI as a federal investigator attached to Behavioral Sciences.  He did well at the work, but occasionally he felt like he wasn't a real cop anymore.  

                But they had stuck together through the rough times.  He had forgiven her for sheltering her cousin.  She had been there for him, and that was enough.  The subject of Susana had not come up in years.  

                She did know that Susana was no longer at the clinic in Paris she had worked in previously.  That gave her pause.  It was good and bad, she supposed.  She didn't have to worry.  Susana was bright enough to stay ducked down somewhere.  But, as before, she was willing to let Susana stay free.  Her life was worth Susana's.  

                And her life was much the same as it had been.  She was still Deputy Chief of Behavioral Sciences.  She still tracked serial killers.  But she wasn't as nervous about Susana anymore.  Oddly, she had the feeling that Susana and Creed together would be a lot less dangerous than they would be apart.  

                Kenton stuck his head in the small room.  She'd asked him to walk her down the aisle, since her own father was deceased.  He looked distinguished in his tux.  But if he was in here…

                "It's coming up on time now," he said.  

                Lisa swallowed and felt tears of nervousness blink to her eyes.  

                "Okay," she said, and gripped her bouquet with white knuckles.  She missed the weight of the Glock on her hip.  Funny how you got used to things like that.  But she had no need for her weapon today.  

                Her mind was wandering.  This was her moment.  To maneuver in the wedding dress was not easy, particularly with this train in the way.  Agent Krause took her place behind her.  They proceeded slowly out to the aisleway of the church.  Organ music began to play.  Lisa found herself blanching.  The church was packed with people.  What seemed to be most of the Boston Police department was on one side; pretty much the entire Behavioral Sciences department – those who weren't in the wedding party – and a fair amount of the FBI on the other.  All standing up and looking at her.  

                Lisa felt tears spring to her eyes.  Kenton's hand was calm on hers as they proceeded down the aisleway.  At the end of the aisleway, waiting with his best man, Jason Sullivan waited in a tuxedo with tails.  

                She found herself thinking oddly of her cousin, for just a moment.  Where was Susana?  She wasn't here; she wouldn't possibly show up at a wedding consisting of FBI and Boston police.  No way.  Was she still with Professor Creed?  Was she happy?  

                She also found herself thinking of a package that had arrived a week or so ago.  It had come from an untraceable remailer.  She'd tried to investigate it and found nothing, but between her job and the wedding she'd been too busy – and too freaked out, she'd admit that – to find much.  It had been delivered to her home in Virginia.  A simple, elegant gold necklace.  One that looked like it would have cost a month's pay even for Lisa.  It held an elegantly cut diamond in the center.  

The note with it had said simply this, 

                _Dear Lisa, _

_                Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials.  Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, or so they say.  Here is something new. For another present, something old – at a bank in Uruguay, I have withdrawn and destroyed what I once deposited in a safe deposit box.   You are free now; allow me the same privilege, if you please. _

_                We are happy; I hope you are as well.  _

_                S.L.C. _

Lisa hadn't bothered to check the writing against the letters in Susana's file.  She knew who it was.  Now, perhaps, she would be at peace.  Susana had let her go; she would reciprocate.  

                As she walked down the aisleway, she heard a whispered sentence. 

"Doesn't she look beautiful, Thomas?"  

                For just a moment, Lisa stiffened.  She could, she supposed, turn around and look.  _Someone _had to have remembered their handcuffs.   She could clear two wanted killers off the FBI's Ten Most-Wanted List at one blow.  _Everyone _would remember that.  

 Then she thought that neither she nor Jason would be here if not for Susana Alvarez Lecter.  

                Jason stood at the end of the aisleway, watching his bride approach.  Lisa sighed, squared her shoulders, and went to him.  She did not look back.  

                …

                Monaco is a wonderland like no other.  

                The country itself is half the size of New York's Central Park.  It is the second smallest independent country in the world.  The same royal family has ruled it for six hundred years.  The casinos in Monaco can only be rivaled by Las Vegas, substituting taste for glitz.  It is a tax haven with no income tax.  Many of the richest people in the world live there.  There are more Rolls-Royces per capita in Monaco than anywhere else in the world.  

                Yet Monaco, like any resort, offers varying degrees of accommodation.  The very wealthy live in Monaco, but anyone may visit.  The casinos and other attractions draw all kinds.  Most visitors to Monaco are European, but it can and does draw people from all over the world.  

                The Monaco Zoological Gardens is a small zoo, as zoos go.  This is necessary in a country so tiny.  But it attracts those who want to see something other than the casino at Monte Carlo.  It has attracted a few such visitors today.  

                Captain Kelly McNeely of the Alexandria Detention Center is such a visitor.  During her career with the jail, she has stood guard over some of the more famous and rare prisoners of the time.  In its own time, the jail has held such high-profile prisoners as Zacarias Moussiaou, the Beltway sniper, and Susana Alvarez Lecter, and many other strange and fearful monsters in the American lexicon.  

                After several years working in the jail, she has written a book.  The first few chapters describe the jail and its conditions.  The remaining chapters each describe one particular prisoner who the captain has guarded at one point or another.  The _New York Times _has called it an 'evenhanded, unflinching look at today's criminals by one who knew them one-on-one'.  The book has received better sales than expected in Europe, where the American justice system has often been criticized.  And so she has gone on a book tour of European cities, answering questions and signing books.  

                In her travels she has met a nice man, an American professor teaching for a year in an English university.  Now, the book tour has a brief interim, and they have taken a few weeks to see Europe together on a more unscheduled basis.  Are they lovers?  It is far too soon to say such a thing.  For now, he enjoys her company and she enjoys his, and that is all that they need or want for right now.  

                The casino at Monte Carlo has been fun, but the zoo is something they did not expect.  It is more fun that they had anticipated.  It brings back memories of childhood, and the zoo is quite clean and pleasant to visit.  

                Ahead of them is a small party consisting of a young British woman and two children.  The children are dressed quite nicely and well turned out.  The boy is nine, tall and thin.  The little girl is five, significantly shorter than her sibling.  He wears a school uniform – a blue blazer, white shirt and tie, and khaki pants.  She wears a blue dress, a matching hat, and white tights.  Lying perhaps twenty feet behind them on the ground is a small black leather purse.  

                Kelly McNeely, the only woman to ever guard Susana Alvarez Lecter during her brief incarceration, bends down and picks up the purse.  She walks up to the group and holds it out.  For a moment she notices the purse is made by Prada and wants to gasp.  A child with a three-hundred-dollar purse?  

                "Honey, I think you dropped this," she says.  

                The little girl turns around.  Upon seeing her dropped purse, a flush of pink reaches her cheeks.  

                "Oh, did she drop that?  Thank you so much," the British nanny says.   To her younger charge, her tone turns just a bit stern.  "Now what do you say?" 

                The little girl takes the edge of her skirt and curtseys gracefully.  

                "_Merci," _she says.  Her small hand takes the purse.  Kelly smiles.  The little girl eyes her behind a pair of sunglasses.  

                "Are you an American?" she asks, seeming interested.  

                "Yes," Kelly replies.  

                "_Bienvenue à Monaco," _the little girl says grandly.  "I am Lady Claire Elise Lecrède."  

                The nanny sighs.  "Claire, you don't _really _have a noble title," she admonishes the little girl.  She turns to the Americans and smiles abashedly.  "She doesn't have a noble title."  

                The little girl seems offended.  "I do so," she says.  "Annette says so too.  And she's Princess of Monaco, so she can say that."  Claire Elise Lecrède attends a highly exclusive preschool.  Her best friend there is the young daughter of Monaco's royal family.  She is justifiably proud of the fact. 

                "When she's on the throne, she can say that," the nanny says.  "She's just five years old, like you are."   Kelly McNeely thinks of the many inmate arguments she has broken up.  Like many of those, she suspects this one has been repeated multiple times.  

                When she first traveled to France, many people warned her of meeting snooty French women.  To meet one so young is amusing.  Kelly gestures to herself.  

                "Thank you, Lady Lecrède," she says.  "My name is Kelly McNeely, and _my _title is Captain."  

                The little girl's head tilts.  She seems thoughtful.  Her brother skulks around a bit, as if vaguely embarrassed by his grandstanding sibling.  

                "You have written a book!" she says in English, her Monegasque accent making the words seem mystical.  "My _papa _writes books, too.  On philosophy, though, not like your book.  My _maman _is reading your book, yes."  

                For any author, those are flattering words to hear.  Now it is Kelly McNeely's turn to flush slightly red and smile.   Perhaps the girl's mother would like an autograph.  

                "Did she like it?"  Kelly asks.  

                "_Oui, oui," _the little girl answers.  "But…," she considered for a moment.  

                "But what?" Kelly asks, wondering what the little girl's mother could possibly mean.  

                "_Un moment, s'il vous plait,_" the little girl says, and looks over at her brother.  She asks him a question in high-pitched French: "_Comment dit on 'avancement' en anglais?"_ The little boy glances over at the two Americans and answers briefly.   His left hand remains crammed in the pocket of his blazer.  Unsatisfied, the little girl addresses her question to her nanny.  

                "Promotion," the nanny informs her.  "The word for that in English is 'promotion'."  

                "_Merci, _Elizabeth," the little girl says, and turns her attention back to the prison captain.  "_Maman _says you must have gotten a promotion.  You were a lieutenant when she knew you."    

                A slight feeling of disquiet falls over Kelly McNeely.  "Did your mommy know me?" she asks.  

                The little girl nods.  

                "Was she in the US?"  For a moment, Kelly wonders if perhaps the little girl's mother was one of the protesters who would show up around the jail.  It's possible, she thinks.  Or perhaps something else.   

                "For a time," the little girl agrees.  "Now we all live here.  It's very pretty, don't you think?"  She takes off her sunglasses to clean the lenses with a handkerchief from her purse.  

                Kelly McNeely is about to agree with the little girl, but words are struck from her suddenly.  The little girl does nothing untoward; she is simply cleaning the lenses of her sunglasses.  She is exactly what she appears to be:  a very wealthy, spoiled little girl who is small enough for her willfulness to be amusing.  But her eyes…her eyes make the captain feel something between extreme uneasiness and low-grade terror.  

                The little girl has maroon eyes.  Her pupils are tiny, inky dots dropped amongst the bloody color of her irises.  They make her appear to be something other than human.  Something feral that will tear you to pieces for its own sheer pleasure, a small predator with a Prada purse.  Kelly McNeely is all too aware of the only other person she has ever seen with maroon eyes.  Her tongue is suddenly dry.  

                The nanny checks her watch.  "Oh!" she cries.  "I'm so sorry," she says to Susana Alvarez Lecter's former keeper.  "We do have to get going."  To her charges, she is firmer.  "Your mother and father are meeting us at the gate.  They've got somewhere to be tonight and wanted dinner as a family."  

                "That's all right," Kelly McNeely says.  She is suddenly much less eager than she might have been to meet the little girl's mother.  "Nice to meet you."  

                "_Au revoir,_" the little girl says.  McNeely watches them go towards the zoo's front gate.  She does not move towards it.  The zoo is small, and she can see the exit from where she stands.  

                Parked at the front gate is a gleaming black Jaguar XKR.  Standing in front of it are a man and a woman.  They look expectantly at the children as they run near.  They are too far away to be anything but silhouettes.  Like the little girl, the man wears sunglasses.  He has perhaps a foot of height on his wife.  Both of them are dressed impeccably in the height of European fashion.  Kelly McNeely finds her palms suddenly sweating.  

                The little girl abandons the ponderous dignity she had adopted and sprints towards her parents, leaping contentedly into her father's arms.  She burbles something in excited, high-pitched French.  Her mother looks at the little girl calmly for a few beats.  She turns her head and eyes the now pale American woman calmly.  She takes a step or two closer.  

                Kelly McNeely begins to walk away.  Her heart pounds.  She grabs Edward's hand and pulls him closer.  

                "Is something wrong?" he asks.  

                "Just trust me," she says.  "Walk with me."  

                But she barely gets fifty feet away before dread and curiosity overcome her.  She turns.  At this distance she cannot make out the face, not exactly.  But she recognizes a slim but strong build.  The other woman is still looking at her.  In the setting sun she fancies that the woman's eyes reflect the light redly at her.   

                The other woman raises her hand once and her fingers wiggle in a wave.  Then, satisfied, she steps into the car.  Kelly McNeely is somewhat pale and nervous as the taillights of the Jaguar disappear down the road.  

                "Ed?" she asks, her voice shaky.  "Do me a favor.  Let's go back to Nice.  Tonight.  No questions asked."  

                "What is it?"  her companion asks, a bit surprised.  

                "Can I tell you later?  Please?"  

                Edward nods, a bit confused.  

                "Did you know that little girl's mother?" he asks.  

                "I may have," Kelly allows.  "If I did…I want to leave her as she was.  A ghost from my past."  

                It wasn't until they were in a hotel room in Nice that she began to relax.

                …

                Follow this family as they return home from the zoo?  All right, but we must do so carefully.  The Lecrède family does not care for unannounced visitors.  

                Claire Elise Lecrède does not know of her origins.  She knows that her _maman _is a surgeon, and a quite good one.  The family owes their Monegasque citizenship to some expert surgical work Dr. Suzanne Lecrède did on the Crown Prince of Monaco. The Prince of Monaco may override the law requiring ten years residency for any resident foreigner he deems worthy of the favor.  He was grateful, and he granted the entire family this favor.  Claire Elise was not included in this; it was unnecessary in her case.  She was born in Monaco.  

                She knows that she has a big brother named Guillaume, and he is nine.  She does not know that her papa is not his papa.  In actuality, he is only vaguely aware of this fact himself.  He was very young when Thomas Lecrède came into his life with his mother.  He refers to the man as _papa _as well.  He is treated no differently than his sibling.  

                Treated no differently?  Perhaps that is not entirely true.  Claire Elise is very much the apple of her father's eye.  Monsieur Lecrède is perhaps a bit harder on his son than his daughter.  Not so much that there is any real favoritism.  Guillaume Lecrède will grow up to become a man, and his father takes the responsibility to raise him properly.  There is an unspoken understanding:  the father tends to indulge Claire; the mother tends to indulge Guillaume.  Both children seem happy with this.  

                There are not many freestanding homes in Monaco, and those that exist are monstrously expensive.  The one in which the Lecrèdes dwell is near the ocean, with a small caretaker's house nearby.  There is not much land.  The Lecrèdes own a larger estate in France, just up the coast, but prefer living in Monaco.  It is here that the children go to school and here they consider home.  Suzanne Lecrède owns a clinic in Monaco.  She believed rightly that a top-shelf surgical clinic in Monaco would draw the wealthy like flies, and she has been correct.  The clinic already has drawn surgeons and patients from all over Europe.  A fair amount of Dr. Lecrède's work is plastic surgery, and this amuses her.  She has done her own work before, and she has done her husband's as well.  But now they are at home.  

                The view of the Mediterranean is astounding from the manse.  Their estate contains a small strip of private beach.  Often, Thomas Lecrède will take his children to walk barefoot with the Mediterranean lapping at their ankles.     

                The family dines together as much as they can.  The dining room is exquisite.  The servants know to leave the family once the first course of dinner is served.  The family eats together and enjoys pleasant conversation.  

                Once the children have gone to bed, the nanny watches over them while the parents depart for Monaco's royal castle.  There is a party at the castle, and they make pleasant conversation as they deal with royalty and the fabulously wealthy.  This last description suits them well.  Hannibal Lecter took pains to ensure that his progeny would never have to work for a living.  They do avoid the _paparazzi _outside attempting to take pictures.  

                On their return, they take some pains to avoid waking the children.  The parlor of their mansion is large and contains a balcony that stretches out literally over the lapping Mediterranean.  In the far corner of the parlor are fine oil portraits of Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling.  These portraits mean different things to each family member.  To Susana, of course, they are her deceased parents, and this is her only real way of including them in her life.  If there is anything that she wishes for that she cannot have, it is the fact that neither of them ever got to see their grandchildren.  To the children, these are of course their deceased grandparents.  Occasionally Guillaume or Claire Elise will stare at the portraits, wondering what sort of persons lay behind the pictures.  Professor Creed's connection is the most tenuous; he did not know them in life, but expresses some gratitude towards them for the woman and life they did give to him.  

                Let us stay back here, by the portraits, as our couple accepts coffee from the servants.  A CD of the _Goldberg Variations _begins to play.   They are fond of dancing on the terrace, and after the coffee this is what they begin to do.  It is far safer for us to stay back here, where they will not see us.  Neither Susana nor Professor Creed have even thought of killing in years.   Their lives are happy here, and they have found a peace in each other.   If they found an intruder in their home, however, they might swiftly revert to their old ways to protect their new life.  

                As the _Goldberg Variations _plays and our couple waltzes and pirouettes, silhouetted in the Mediterranean moonlight, we must keep our distance.  Stay back here and they will not see us.  They are focused on each other.  Take a moment to observe our couple as they dance on the terrace in the warm Monegasque night.  We have watched Professor Creed for not terribly long, but be assured, he is far happier now than he was when and where we first found him.  Susana we have watched for far longer.  We have seen her as a young woman bent on revenge against those who had wronged her deceased father.  We have seen her as a frightened young girl held captive by a killer.  We have seen her as a killer on her own, toying with her new nemesis.   We have seen her as a woman captured and brought low, turning around by luck and viciousness to carry out a successful guerilla war against a much larger opponent.  And finally, we have seen her as she is now, a woman who sought to free the man she loves and did.  Now we must close her books and settle her account. 

                Our last sighting of Susana shall be of her dancing, her hand revolving in Professor Creed's, her dress whirling up and out around her legs as she spins towards him.  Her eyes are closed and on her face is an expression of joy.  Let us capture her in that moment where she neither mocks nor threatens, in a moment of happiness and contentment, and depart with that. 

Quickly now, down the servants' stairs, if you please.  Don't worry about waking the children; Claire and Guillaume sleep on the topmost floor and will not hear us.  Their parents may, and so we must be out by the time the music fades.  Should either maroon eyes or pinpoint pupils catch sight of our motion as we depart, the results could be instantly fatal.  Kelly McNeely has wisely departed Monaco for the safety of Nice, and to follow her example would be astute.

Now we, too, must part ways.  


End file.
